“I would have to say attending clinics and getting to talk to the local people was an interesting experience. Learning the intricacies of the US health care system and experiencing how physicians work around the bureaucratic hurdles to help patients was a great learning opportunity. ”
– Syed Osama Ahmad, Alfaisal University College of Medicine (Saudi Arabia)

“One of my favorite parts is that it’s a very big hospital compared to where I live. Here we have patients from all around the state so that means that we have many patients whose are very difficult cases and have very rare diseases. I have seen many syndromes here that I had never seen in Spain, and I really enjoy doing research and learning how the treatment and management of these patients is.”
– Martin Huerta Garcia, Universidad de Navarra (Spain)

“This rotation has allowed me to gain more exposure to the specialty. More importantly, I was given more autonomy and responsibility than OR anesthesia! I spent two weeks at the UNC Pain Clinic, where I got to see 5-7 patients independently every day and talk about my diagnosis and plan of care with the attendings before composing a comprehensive note in EPIC. I am very proud that I correctly diagnosed a patient with complex regional pain syndrome on my last day of the rotation (of course with the help of our dear friend UpToDate).”
– Kevin Hong – University of Sydney School of Medicine (Australia)

“Everyone is so nice and so helpful. For my previous two electives, it was more you step back and watch what they are doing. For this one, I can have my own thoughts and plans and discuss with the team. So, I feel more involved with patient care.”
– Zhuoran Yang, Shanghai Medical College Fudan University (China)

“This was totally different compared to our home country.  One thing new was the bedside rounds, which I really enjoyed where we had to explain to the patient what was happening and at the same time explain to the attending what was happening which really helped me improve my communication skills.  With bedside rounds, the attendings always encouraged us and gave us great feedback with ways to improve.”
– Divya Sudireddy – Apollo Institute of Medical Sciences and Research

“The advice I would give to future students is to drop any expectations you have and just come here with a blank slate. I thought doing a rotation in Nephrology meant that I was going to see AKI every day, but you don’t realize how unique each patient is. Every single day I learned a new topic…”
– Kaavya Murali – Kasturba Medical College Manipal (India)

“UNC is an excellent place to be at. You often read about UNC being one of the top medical schools in the country, and when you’re actually here you realize why they mean that. I think it’s because academics is so ingrained into clinical practice are every level. Everyone who is at the hospital is learning, the residents, students and fellows are all learning.”
– Shivani Wadnerkar – Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (India)

“The advice that I would want to give would be to take things one step at a time guys and to not overthink about how you are performing in your elective. Just remember that you’re here to learn and focus on the learning part and honestly everything else just falls into place.”
– Muhammad Dawood Sheikh – The Aga Khan University (Pakistan)

“This is my third elective in the States and has definitely been the best so far. The reason I say this, is because UNC has a good patient load, I saw a variety of cases and got sufficient hands on experience both on the liver and luminal side. I got the opportunity to see procedures I had just read about in books”
– Simranjit Kaur – Kasturba Medical College, Manipal (India)

“[My residents] treated me like an actual intern and not like a student. Even though it was tough in the beginning it was very helpful to boost up my confidence and get an idea of what it would be like to be a resident in the United State. I ended up doing a lot of work because they pushed me to it. This made me realize that I can fit it into the system. ”
– Noor Shoukat – Shifa College of Medicine (Pakistan)