Elective Planning

I'm trying to plan my elective placement at the moment, and it's proving to be a bit of a pain. At the end of first year, after our end-of-year exam, we do a four-week placement. It can be practically anywhere we like (within reason - we can't go to Afghanistan, or Baghdad, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example), in any field we like, and often involves a lot of hands-on work. The whole concept is very exciting, and I'm sure it'll be the best part of first year. I'm planning on going to South-East Asia, so that I can visit some family that live in that area afterwards.

It has been proving quite difficult and extremely time-consuming, however, to organise my placement. I originally wanted to go to Cambodia, as I thought it would be fascinating to work in a country which has such an underdeveloped health system, and would give me a opportunity to actually help people. I spent hours researching health organisations and clinics there, trying to find contact details for people who could take me on. Then I wrote countless letters and emails, and, after 6 weeks, I have received only two replies. Both of these replies thanked me for my interest, but stated that their clinics were too small to be able to take students, and existed specifically to train Cambodian doctors.

I've now revised my plans, and am intending to go to Malaysia. There seems to be quite a lot of available information about doing an elective there, unlike for Cambodia, so perhaps it's easier to get a place there. There's also more likelihood that some of the patients will speak English, which might be helpful! So far I've only sent out one email, but I received a tentatively promising response today, which had me heaving a HUGE sigh of relief! Sure, this one organisation may fall through, but I have a list of about ten others in Malaysia to contact yet, and the fact that the one I did contact already responded is a promising sign.

My main whinge is that it's so time-consuming. I'll have to spend a few hours this week writing letters to people about placements, and this is all time that gets taken out of my study time. I need that time to cram as much as I can into this tiny little brain of mine.