Visit SMRU
Please Note: Visitor application to SMRU is temporarily withheld. We will announce when it is accessible again.
Thank you for your interest in working with SMRU where humanitarian work and research are integrated providing a unique clinical and scientific experience. Working with SMRU can be rich professionally (with a balance between supervised and independent work) and culturally (when working closely with local staff). Visitors often play an important role in the routine operational work at SMRU.
Please be aware that we are sometimes booked out a year in advance, especially during popular elective periods such as June-August and suggest that you plan early. Depending on the nature of your visit the minimum stay allowed is 6 weeks although longer is encouraged and in exceptional circumstances, may be less. We are not able to facilitate visits on short notice or those that are interrupted by holidays (for visits < 3 months). If you plan to travel in the region, please plan for this before or after your period of work with SMRU to minimize interruptions and simplify logistics.
When you first contact us, we will need the potential dates you will be available, a brief statement of what you would be interested in doing, your personal expectations, and a recent curriculum vitae.
See a list of current positions SMRU is currently seeking to fill. - currently unaccessable
How to apply for a position:
- Review SMRU's Expectation of Visitors: This provides important information that may affect your decision to apply.
- Complete our Online Application. You should receive a reply within 4 weeks. Do not hesitate to follow up if you have not been contacted within that time. Typically at this point, we will be working to identify a mentor for your visit.
- If a mentor is identified, we will ask you to provide 2 referees and their email addresses.
- Once we receive responses from your referees, a decision will be made whether or not we will be able to offer you a position. Please remember that there may be more than one person applying for rotation during the same period of time and for a limited number of mentors.
Humanitarian Visitors
- those who are interested in helping with SMRU activities in any way they can. Some visitors (i.e. high school, undergraduate, PhD) come to experience what SMRU does in the clinics or laboratories, and during their stay may be asked to assist with additional activities that need support such as teaching, preparing data, or performing laboratory analyses. Other visitors (i.e. midwives, doctors, engineers) may come to provide their practical expertise and help by teaching, training and supporting other activities related to the clinical work.
***If you are a journalist and have not yet made contact with someone at SMRU, feel free to send us an email and we will direct you to the appropriate department.
Feedback from previous visitors:
- Doctor in training (paediatrics), Maela clinic - 2015 |
- Undergraduate student who observed and worked in SMRU laboratories - 2015 |
- Doctor in training (not yet specialised), Wangpa clinic - 2015 |
Research Visitors
- those who require a project and are inquiring for an elective rotation with a research supervisor at SMRU. If you are a research collaborator, please communicate directly with the department or individual you are partnering with. Elective rotations with a project can require a significant amount of planning and work even before the rotation begins (by both the visitor and the supervisor). Please keep in mind that there are a limited number of supervisors and projects. We encourage you to be flexible when considering what projects are available.
We have observed that projects which only need data analysis (data are already prepared for analysis by the supervisor) and a thesis will require a minimum of 3 months to complete. If you will also be collecting or preparing data, we recommend that you plan for a longer peroid of time. If your research requires ethical approval please note that this process, after the initial submission, usually takes 2 to 6 months possibly less for minimal risk projects. Depending on the length of stay, visitors performing clinical research may be expected to contribute to routine clinical and adminstrative work in parallel with their research; commonly, these are physicians pursuing a PhD.
Feedback from previous visitors:
- Research collaborator (Plasmodium vivax), Singapore - current |
- Masters student (medicine, obstetrics), Netherlands - 2015 |
- Research collaborator (Plasmodium vivax), Singapore |