Electives & other short-term placements

 
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Why study with us?

Experience

2019 UK elective student examining a detainee

Student examining a patient in a remote jail

We have over a decade (including right through the pandemic) of experience in providing offender healthcare electives and other short-term training placements to student and junior healthcare professionals (HCPs) of all faiths and none.

Difference

Unlike lots of other placement providers, we give you the chance to make a real difference. You won’t be a ‘spare wheel’ standing in the corner of a clinic or ward. We actually need your help. Every week you will see many sick detainees every week who otherwise would go without medical assistance.

Hands-on

You will work hand-in-glove with our Philippines healthcare team. We have a daily morning meeting, followed by activities both scheduled and ad hoc. No week is exactly the same: Filipino culture puts people above time, offender healthcare is highly changeable, and time-off requests vary from student to student. So a flexible attitude is absolutely essential. But here’s a typical week:

Detainees showing their scabies rashes

Opportunity

You will also be able to further your career, by gathering material for a case study suitable for publication in a peer reviewed journal.

Certainly if you’re an elective student, you will contribute to our service development by:

Safe

We take seriously our duty of care to you. We have never had a trainee come to physical or psychological harm. We induct you thoroughly. We equip you properly - including FFP3 masks to filter not just COVID-19 but also tuberculosis. We deploy you in line with our specialist policies. And we supervise you carefully.

Supportive

Elective students Imogen and Olivia off duty in our base’s secure courtyard

Offender healthcare is neither straightforward nor risk free. Doing it in another climate and culture adds further to the challenge. So we give you optimal support throughout your placement:

  • comfortably full board accommodation in our safe, home-from-home base

  • daily medical supervision by a suitably experienced doctor familiar with your own medical and social culture

  • weekly in the evenings:

    • clinical supervision for your psychological support

    • teaching about relevant health conditions

Value

This safe, supportive manner of running placements is necessary, but does not come cheap. Still, we represent tremendous value for money. Learn more…

Fun

An offender healthcare placement really is enormous fun in itself. And there are many more ways to further enhance the fun. Learn more…

Assessment

Different healthcare institutions require particular things from you and us in terms of assessment of your time with us. Some assignments are common - for example, most UK medical schools require their elective students to write a reflective essay - and can be done in your own time.

We of course comply with the particular requirements of your institution. To bring an element of objectivity to our comments about your performance, we do a case-based discussion with you during the last week of your time with us. We keep a retrospective Google calendar of activities, and we also log specific outputs.

Motivation

Hannah and fellow elective student Sam in our base, at the close of a CPR training day they ran for our local staff, local OJT students, and teachers of detainees’ children

We run offender healthcare placements because we are passionate about getting you - part of the next generation of HCPs - to care about detainees.

Likely you won’t become a dedicated offender HCP working in a secure environment, but simply understanding more about detainees will help. Detainees are often transferred to hospital and seen in outpatient clinics. Your attitude will help the detainee in front of you, and also be a force for good among your colleagues.

Having the right motivation is of vital importance for an elective within this healthcare field. We look for compassionate, flexible, hard working team players who are willing to serve.

One student who embodied all of these qualities is Hannah, now Dr Bolton, who did her elective with us in 2025. She threw herself into our work, served with distinction, and wrote an insightful elective report for the sponsor of her bursary:

I am grateful to have learnt about a completely different culture, medicine through bars, taking leadership, the running of an NGO, and faith in action. It has left me wanting to get involved in so many areas of healthcare and faith, but of course, it is not possible to do everything. Wherever I end up, I will incorporate integral mission and pursue justice for those I meet.

Read more…

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to
live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
Ephesians 4:1