Work In a Medical/Healthcare Project in Peru

Project At A Glance

Location: Cusco and Urubamba Start point: Cusco End Point: Cusco Duration: 2-12 weeks Hours: 30-40 hours per week Food: Local meals (3 times a day) Room: Homebase or host family Date: First and Third Monday of each month

Project Summary

Peru has the outdated healthcare industry of a still-developing country. While healthcare professionals attempt to keep pace with the advances of modern medicine, there are massive amounts of Peruvians who do not have access to absolute basic healthcare. IFRE's volunteer projects in Peru place interested medical/healthcare professionals to support the often-intimidating front line of medicine and healthcare in a developing country.

Healthcare project volunteers in Peru’s can expect to supply beyond the “know-how” of their training (no matter how in-depth or basic), but can also expect to share their proactive attitude and innate abilities. In the battle against various diseases, thought obsolete or remedied in western countries there is a shortage of supplies and resources. There are limited flu shots and things as simple as antibiotics are in short supply. Medical/healthcare volunteers are greatly welcomed in these projects to share their time, knowledge, skills and support with the immensely challenged Peru healthcare industry.

Skills/Qualifications Needed

Beginner to intermediate knowledge of Spanish is preferred (not mandatory) . If you cannot speak Spanish, we suggest you enroll in our Spanish language course to make your stay more rewarding – both for you and for the children you are helping. Applicants interested in joining our volunteer health program must possess healthcare certification, such as an ID as a medical student, EMT, paramedic certification, nursing or physician's credentials. We do not permit volunteers without medical credentials to work in this program due to the potential risk. The projects require a copy of volunteers’ resumes, clearly documenting credentials and education, before arrival at the project. Projects will also require an official copy of credentials.

Volunteer Responsibilities

Job responsibilities for medical project volunteers/interns in Peru vary dependent on education, skills, experience and qualifications and on the community’s current needs. Volunteers could be delivering babies, suturing wounds or giving vaccinations. Some volunteers may also be asked to support public health campaigns.

As a medical volunteer in Peru, volunteers could be placed in a large hospital or small clinic. Most of the hospitals (regardless of size) have many departments, like western hospitals, so a volunteer may be placed in any department dependent on skills, qualifications and training.

Room/Food/Supervision

Most volunteers placed in Cusco projects stay at our home base – a permanent home set aside for international volunteers and manned with a local staff. Our home base provides a same-gender shared room and shared bathroom with running hot water and a “western” style toilet. Volunteers will have the ability to do laundry at the home base. Volunteers receive three prepared meals per day. If volunteers will be out of the house during lunch hour, volunteers can request a lunch "to go" that volunteers can take with volunteers or eat out. Meals are cuisine, which is traditional to Peru.

Our Cusco home base is located in the center of beautiful Cusco city. Most of our volunteers’ projects are located within 2-5 miles of the home base. Therefore, volunteers can simply walk to their projects or take a local taxi. Most necessary services for travelers are located within 2 km of the homebase: internet cafés, restaurants and grocery stores.

Occasionally, depending on volunteer traffic, available projects or distance to a volunteer’s assigned project, we may also place our volunteers with carefully pre-screened host families. Our host families are socially respected and experienced hosts of international volunteers. They have strong interest in our volunteers’ safety and well-being and demonstrate this with caution and care. In most host family situations, volunteers will share a room with another volunteer of the same gender. Volunteers receive three meals a day. Our host families do not offer laundry services, but some will happily take up the task for a small fee. This is up to volunteers to negotiate upon arrival. If volunteers choose to do their own laundry, most families are happy to let volunteers use their washbasins where volunteers wash by hand then line-dry their clothes.

Throughout the volunteer project, our local staff stays in contact with volunteers either with face-to-face visits or via email/telephone. Volunteers are always welcome at the local office in Cusco. If project placement is local, we request that volunteers stop by the office once a week to keep us posted on how they are doing with their home stay and project. If project placement is very far, then our local staff members maintain communication by either email and/or phone and try to visit every 2-4 weeks if possible.