Eastern Electives

Working with UK Trade & Investment in Hyderabad, UK company Medco Global Exchange has made the connections it needed to set up its first Indian elective program for UK medical students

An overseas elective used to be an opportunity for final year medical students to give of their time and training to under-staffed and under-funded healthcare facilities, in developing countries. In an interesting twist, Swansea-based Medco Global Exchange sends British undergraduate medics to state-of-the-art hospitals and healthcare institutions in emerging markets.

The company is an offshoot of clinical services provider Med-Co Group. Med-Co (Europe) Ltd was established in 1998, providing temporary staffing solutions to GP surgeries across the UK. The company has since diversified to run specialist GP-led medical services for the Navy and the National Health Service (NHS), and this has motivated it to set up a number of new companies and to look into overseas opportunities.

“Our parent company found its niche in medical recruitment and continues to fill locum positions throughout the UK,” says Ian Rees, Chairman at Med-Co Group. “There are a lot of players in the UK’s healthcare sector, and we wanted to use the collective expertise of our staff to differentiate and expand our operations. Although we will continue our work in clinical recruitment and service delivery in the UK, we felt that there were international opportunities to be explored.”