Clinical Placements in Nepal

On your medical elective in Nepal, you’ll come across patients with all manner of unfamiliar conditions — Japanese encephalitis, malnutrition, maybe even the odd monkey bite. The ED, surgery, and paediatrics are but a few of the departments you’re able to get experience in. Spend time in general medicine and you’ll see a breadth of infectious diseases — some estimates indicate that 70% of all conditions are attributable to infectious disease. For example intestinal parasitic infections are a cause of malnutrition. If you want to specialise, Kathmandu offers excellent opportunities — ophthalmology, dermatology, psychiatry, and cardiothoracics are just a few options. If you're interested in a medical elective in Asia, Kathmandu is a fantastic option.

To make sure you get the most out of your placement in Nepal, we’ve partnered with a dedicated team at a large teaching hospital in the country’s capital city — Kathmandu. The services offered by the hospital are comprehensive; labour wards, postnatal wards, post-op wards, infertility services, and more. As a midwifery student in Kathmandu, you’ll quickly develop an understanding of what it takes to deliver healthcare when faced with low-resources.

Dentistry in Kathmandu is not as accessible as it is in more developed nations. Nepalese people often have to travel significant distances to be seen by specialists with the right skills. Our partner hospital in Kathmandu is home to many such specialists, and people travel from far and wide for treatment. You’ll spend plenty of time in this department and see how local staff carry out procedures like routine check-ups, abscess surgeries, restorations, and pulpectomies to name but a few.

During your biomedical science placement in Nepal, you could gain focused experience in specialities like haematology, microbiology, virology and parasitology. All of which could present you with cases you’ve never seen before that are specific to the locale. You might encounter patients presenting unfamiliar conditions such as Japanese encephalitis, malnutrition, and the occasional monkey bite. Estimates suggest that around 70% of all conditions stem from infectious diseases — something you could see for yourself in general medicine. Malnutrition, for example, is often linked to intestinal parasitic infections.

On a nursing placement in Kathmandu, you’ll undertake your placement in one of the dedicated partner hospitals. Thanks to the strong relationships we have with these institutions, you can spend time in as many departments as you choose. You can even travel out into the city with local specialists to help conduct community outreach, to really get under the skin of nursing in Nepal. Some of the best specialists in the country live in Kathmandu, and many of them practice in our main partner hospital — you can tap into their expertise at your leisure.

In Kathmandu, you will see that the differences between even the most fundamental aspects of care are significant. A lack of patient privacy is one example, a lack of cross-infection control is another. Even the way routine procedures are performed differs — manual intubation conducted without anaesthesia to give you one example. You’ll even see how patients’ (and families’) ability to pay for care has a considerable bearing on how conditions are diagnosed and treated.

Physiotherapy in Nepal has grown as a discipline in recent years, with 30 qualified physiotherapists recorded in 2007 versus 500 in 2012. As part of your placement in Nepal you will treat patients of all ages and from all walks of life. Many patients originate from Kathmandu city, but many travel in from the villages in the Himalayan foothills. Of course, you’ll see common complaints like back and shoulder pain, but the physiotherapy department also serves as a rehabilitation centre. You can help rehabilitate patients who’ve been in serious RTAs, falls, those who’ve suffered spinal injuries…. Most of the patients here will be referred from orthopaedics, neurology, and ENT.

The radiography department has a good range of facilities by local standards. Being  services are offered at a reasonable rate in comparison to other private hospitals in Nepal. Of course, the number of patients varies, but on a typical day there are around 50 patients for USG, 15 for CT scan, up to 150 patients for X-ray and around eight for MRI.

Pharmacy in the form we recognise it, to the Nepalese is a relatively new idea. Healing concoctions made from herbs and ancient Buddhist and Hindu healing prayers are still often used in the absence of modern medicine. But practicing pharmacy in our partner hospitals will provide you with an authentic experience of the provision of more modern healthcare in the developing world. Ward rounds, dispensing medicine and a stint in the pharmacovigilance unit will open your eyes.