About Us

“In 2013, more than 2,000 students from the UK, USA, Australia and many other parts of the world will undertake Gap Medics placements. They will gain first-hand experience of working in hospitals, mentored by experienced doctors, nurses, dentists and midwives. They will live in our safe, secure and sociable Gap Medics houses, be met at the airport and supported until the moment they leave by our own dedicated staff teams and eat great local food prepared by our own full-time caterers.

In short, they will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will help them better understand their chosen career path, develop them as people, and be an invaluable asset on their university applications.”

- Dave Brown, Director

Gap Medics is a specialist company that arranges short-term placements to give aspiring healthcare students first-hand experience of working in a hospital environment. Our placements are specifically designed for students between the ages of 16 and 25, who are considering careers in medicine, nursing or other healthcare professions, before they begin their clinical training.

Our Head Office is in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, but we welcome students from all over the world and have recently opened our first North American student office in San Francisco, California.

Around half of all the placements we provide are in Tanzania, East Africa, as it offers an ideal environment for students to gain a truly comprehensive insight into the day-to-day work of doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff – coupled with the excitement and adventure that make this a once in a lifetime experience. Our other major programmes are in Thailand and Czech Republic in Central Europe.

Our comprehensive support service is designed to make these opportunities as safe and secure as possible, calling on all our experience from placing thousands of students in healthcare settings around the world since 2005.

All of our overseas programmes are run by professional staff teams with expert local knowledge who are employed and trained directly by our highly-experienced UK team. Unlike many other organisations, we do not outsource our operations to third parties – even the person who meets students off the plane on arrival is part of our team, wearing the distinctive black Gap Medics T-shirt!

Our story

The Gap Medics story began in 2005, when Director Dave Brown founded our sister company, Work the World. Building on Dave’s experience leading international volunteer projects in Africa…Read More

Ethical policy

We believe we have a strong social obligation to support the communities in which we work around the world. We are also passionately committed to minimizing the negative environmental impact our operations have…Read More

Gap Medics and ASDAN

Gap Medics placements are recognized by ASDAN (The Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network.) Our healthcare placements have been checked and verified against all conditions for the Universities Award. Given the nature of our programmes and number of learning hours a student will experience, simply going on a Gap Medics placement means that you are entitled to receive a Universities Certificate after you have completed your placement with us. Many UK universities acknowledge its value and it features in the UCAS guidance for applicants to university as something noteworthy to mention on your UCAS form…Read More

Company Information

Gap Medics is a Limited company Registered in England and Wales, number 06949200. We are a member of the British Foreign and Commonwealth “Know Before You Go”Campaign which is designed to help students to stay safe and healthy abroad.