Quick Overview
Take your medical elective abroad and expand your horizons with immersive travel and training at the same time. Our medical volunteer program in Sri Lanka offers you a chance to gain international experience, where you can get invaluable training supervised under experienced medical experts, and you will have the rare opportunity to learn more about healthcare and medicine in a different country. Sri Lanka is known to have one of best preventative and curative health care system in South Asia. As a model for developing countries, you will learn a lot from the dedicated doctors in Sri Lanka about medical and healthcare in developing countries. This unique experience will open your eyes to the world of medicine in a developing country, and you will be amazed to see how well run and managed and sophisticated some of the hospitals in Sri Lanka are.
This medical experience is suitable for pre-med and medical students. Your medical placement will allow you to get the work experience you need to give your CV an edge to help advance your career or boost your medical school application, and you will also benefit from an immersive cultural experience through living in Sri Lanka.
Our medical programs in Sri Lanka are strictly observation based only. If you are doing an elective with us we will ask you to send your scope so that we can confirm what you are able to achieve. We will ask you for your clinical area of interest but your location will ultimately depend on availability during the time you arrive. Being a very popular program location we encourage you to apply in advance to guarantee your spot. A certificate will be given on completion and we would be glad to complete any paperwork related to your electives forms.
What’s Involved
Our Medical students will be based in Galle ( in Southern Sri Lanka). We have strategic partnerships with well renowned private and public hospitals in Sri Lanka and your placement will be in one of them (depending on availability).
This medical programs in Sri Lanka is ideal for students looking for an opportunity to train alongside medical specialists and to spend time in hospitals with access to various clinical areas of your choice. Our programs in Sri Lanka are also suitable for pre-med students who are also looking to gain some experience and want to boost their application process for medical school.
On average medical student will work for 3 to 5 hours a day depending on hospital and clinical area allocations given. At the hospital a coordinator will be assigned to you who will give you your clinical allocations and hospital timings(depending on doctors availability and patient cases). On your first day at the hospital you will get a general introduction and tour of the different units. We will try to give you a placement in your clinical area however we can not guarantee this as ultimately it depends on the hospital.
What you do at the placement is dependant on a host of factors including patient cases at the time, medical staff availability, clinical area chosen, timings and so on. Being a real world setting things in hospitals change rapidly, and we expect you to be flexible and embrace every learning opportunity that this program offers you.
All The Details
Galle, Sri Lanka
2019 | 2020 | |||
3rd November | 5th January | 5th April | 26th July | 25th October |
10th November | 12th January | 12th April | 2nd August | 1st November |
17th November | 19th January | 19th April | 9th August | 8th November |
24th November | 26th January | 26th April | 16th August | 15th November |
1st December | 2nd February | 3rd May | 23rd August | 22nd November |
8th December | 9th February | 10th May | 30th August | 29th November |
15th December | 16th February | 17th May | 6th September | 6th December |
22nd December | 23rd February | 24th May | 13th September | 13th December |
29th December | 1st March | 31st May | 20th September | 20th December |
8th March | 7th June | 27th September | 27th December | |
15th March | 5th July | 4th October | ||
22nd March | 12th July | 11th October | ||
29th March | 19th July | 18th October |
For this program please email hello@volunteeringjourneys.com for the rates per week.
Price Includes
- Pick-up and Drop from airport
- Shared accommodation
- Breakfast and Dinner
- Project orientation
- 24/7 Staff Support
- Hospital Placement
- Community visits as required
Whats Not Included in your program fee :
- Flights to the program destination
- Medical and travel insurance
- Visa costs
- Vaccinations
- Transport to the projects
- Local excursions
- Lunch
Local Team On Ground
Janaka: Program Manager
Janaka is our Program Manager in Galle. A well respected and connected local from Sri Lanka who will meet you on your first day on arrival at the volunteer house in Sri Lanka and give you the necessary information on your first day in the hospital. Janaka will be your main local contact and he will liase between yourself and the hospital coordinators to ensure your program is successful. Janaka can also organises community visits and meetings with renowned doctors and will be a great contact for you for the medical world.
- The nearest airport for this program is Colombo Airport ( CMB )
- We recommend you apply for TOURIST Visas ONLY
- Travel Insurance is compulsory on this program.
- You need to submit a copy of your passport, resume and a letter from your university stating your course (in English) to us before you begin this program.
- Clear indication of clinical area of interest has to be submitted to us.
What Happens When I Arrive?

Living Arrangements for Medical Volunteers:
Accommodation is provided in our volunteer villa in Galle. While your home may be basic you will have the following amenities: Internet/wifi, rooms with fans and western style shared bathrooms. Rooms are shared and you will be sharing your bathroom as well. During busy months we do use alternative housing (of equal standard) and you may be in one of these.
For our medical students only breakfast and dinner is included. Lunch is at your own expense and can be eaten at the hospital (if you are there). Breakfast can typically be Sri Lankan style like milk rice with sambol or eggs, bread, with tea/coffee and fruits. Dinner is usually rice with Sri Lankan curries with rice or Sri Lankan bread. Project transport will be arranged by our local teams for you.
If you need accommodation upgrades such as private rooms or air conditioning we can provide this if you let us know in advance. There will be an extra charge for this.

Weekends :
Weekends are free for your to explore beautiful Sri Lanka. We normally have plans for Udawalawa wildlife safari, Sinharaja rain forest hiking, water rafting in Kithulgala, whale watching in Indian Ocean and country side bike rides. Our local team would be glad to help organise or give you advise on whats best.
Galle Villa Tour :
Below is a video of our Galle location volunteer house.