Tips and Tricks: Planning Your Elective [Part 1]

Since I’ve kind of started paying more attention to the blog again, my friend Caroline asked me to share some tips on electives. (Hi, Caroline!) You may remember the elective series I ran a few years ago. I haven’t exactly stopped the series, I just am not really in the position to seek out medical students

Elective Extravaganza! Hyperbaric and Diving Medicine, Cape Town

It’s alive! (This feature, that is.) Today I chat to Inutti McApple (nickname) about her fifth year elective in Hyperbaric and Diving Medicine, which I know next to nothing about. Inutti is now a final year student at Stellenbosch University and set to start internship in January! I’ll give the rest over to her.

Elective Extravaganza: Forensic Pathology in South Africa

Today, a fifth year medical student, Ryan, joins me to talk about his fourth year elective in Forensic Pathology. Readers of the blog might remember that I found Forensics to be immensely interesting but also emotionally heavy. You can read more of those posts here.

Elective Extravaganza: Internal and ED in Malaysia

Here is a little something different for Elective Extravaganza: what happens when you realise you chose the “wrong” thing for your elective? Aziza Aini (a fellow blogger, click on over) is a third year medical student in Malaysia who, during her second year, did an elective in Internal Medicine. Although she enjoyed it, she realised

Elective Extravaganza: Radiology in Cape Town

Finally I’ve found another victim amazing participant for Elective Extravaganza. Today I talk to Mari Gildenhuys, a fifth year medical student at Stellenbosch University. She did her fourth year elective in Radiology and had a fabulous time. Radiology has always been daunting to me, as you might have noticed in some of my previous posts.

How I did Semester at Sea while at Medical School

I have alluded to this before, but medical students rarely do Semester at Sea, and when they do, they are usually there for a short while. For example, the few medical students from the University of Virginia who spend a few weeks on the tropical leg of a Spring voyage; or inter-port students, like the

[Guest] Elective Extravaganza: Rural Psychiatry in Kimberley and Lobatse

Kopano N. Mokale has just completed his fourth year of medical school at a South African university. He did his fourth year elective in Rural Psychiatry, something I thought was very brave and super interesting. I trust you will enjoy his story. As always, let me know if you’d like to share your Elective story.

[Guest] Elective Extravaganza: Nuclear Medicine in KZN

The second in my series about medical electives, today I share a post written by Stéphan, a medical student from South Africa who has just completed his fourth year. He writes about what may well be the least-known elective and discipline. Enjoy, and feel free to let me know if you would like to share about

Elective Extravaganza: Plastic Surgery in CPT

Electives are an integral part of medical education, but choosing and organising an elective can be a major source of stress for students. For this reason I am doing a series on electives of various specialties and cities. (Technically, this series began more than a year ago with Nabeela’s post). If you are student in

Semester at Sea: Happies and Crappies

Yesterday was a whole month since I have been back in South Africa. That means that my whirlwind circumnavigating-the-world experience has been over for over a month! And I have written painfully little since I’ve been back. (What, I did have good reasons – namely exams and clinical rotations, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.) I spent a lot of