Healthcare Internships In Ghana

On your medical internship in Ghana, you’ll see how local staff have adapted to deal with the debilitating lack of resources faced by local professionals. You'll also rotate through a range of departments including (but certainly not limited to) NICU, orthopedics, the ED and OBG. The dedicated HIV clinic draws around 300 patients per week, and you’re more than welcome to get heavily involved in this area. In short, this medical internship in Africa offers an exceptional variety of options for you.

Our partner hospital in Ghana is extremely welcoming to students. This makes for a fantastic internship and supervision across the board. Areas like female and male surgical are popular (female surgical doubles up as a paediatric department), but there is also opportunity to do some community outreach depending on your field of interest. You will also be able to spend time in reproductive health clinics, or out in the community helping to weigh babies. NICU is a busy department, as is the ED, where you’ll see many trauma cases.

Midwives in Ghana can expect exceptional clinical experience. You can attend live births, and learn how Ghanaian midwives approach both pre and postnatal care. Procedures like caesarean sections, and complications like breech births, are more common in Ghana than they are in America. You’ll also learn why many patients don’t receive prenatal care. For cultural reasons, Ghanaian women are expected to give birth in silence. Things like this may surprise you. But please remember you’re there to understand rather than to judge. This is one of the many reasons an internship with Work the World is so unique.

The hospital with which we are partnered has its own physical therapy department housed in its own block, functioning primarily as an outpatient unit. It is professionally staffed and extremely well equipped by local standards. The outpatient unit handles a significant number of cases each day, the majority of which are regular patients who attend a few times each week. In this department you’ll encounter instances of strokes, post-operative rehabilitation, Bells' palsy, and Erb's palsy among others. Treatment here is focused on the use of gym equipment and instructing patients such that they can continue necessary exercises in the comfort of their own home.

If you’re thinking about an emergency medicine internship overseas, Ghana might be the place for you. The internship takes place in Takoradi’s largest and best-equipped hospital. Of course, ‘well equipped’ in Takoradi is different from ‘well equipped’ in North America. The ED here is open plan and has separate areas for pediatrics and minor surgery. Though, when things get busy (which is often), the lines blur between these areas. You can spend time with local Ghanaian students too, sharing stories and learning skills. Perhaps most importantly, you’ll see how small differences in local Ghanaian culture have a big impact on emergency care.

Radiology departments in Ghana are not as well equipped as the departments you’re used to working in at home. In our partner hospital, it is common for patients to be referred from directly within the hospital, or indeed from smaller clinics in the surrounding community. This means you will gain experience observing and analyzing a wide range of conditions. In terms of machinery, you can get experience with X-ray, ultrasound, and more. Other procedures you can expect to get experience with include hysterosalpingograms, barium meals, urethrograms, fistulagrams, and more.

Our pharmacy internships in Ghana will surpass your expectations, and you will experience a clinically-focused placement. As well as spending time in the pharmacy itself, you’ll undertake ward rounds, acquiring new skills along the way. This gives you insight into a completely different side of pharmaceutical provision. What’s more, you’ll observe the inner workings of a lab where medicines like unbranded aspirin are made.

Clinical experience for dentists in Ghana is eye-opening. Alongside a team of local specialists, you’ll see significant patient numbers. You can get to grips with things like preventive health checks, and take part in an observational internship in the ENT department should you choose. It’s also possible, under certain circumstances, to head out into the community to conduct outreach work.

During your biomedical science internship in Ghana, you can garner experience in the clinical laboratory, learning the local approach to diagnoses, screening blood, and ensuring the production of safe blood products. In terms of cases, you could encounter conditions like diabetic gangrene (often leading to amputations), acute malaria, and even typhoid psychosis. More broadly, you can spend time in departments like ER, general medicine, orthopedics, and surgery. Regardless of where you choose to spend time, you’ll see that practices in Takoradi diverge significantly from what you’re used to seeing. The hospital's HIV clinic, attended by approximately 300 patients each week, offers you the chance to gain substantial insight if you opt for it.