Program Reviews

Hi, I am Brieanne from Canada, and I just finished a three-week dental internship at the Yoda O.D.C. Clinic in Athens, Greece. I previously graduated with two undergraduate bachelor's degrees, one in chemistry and one in my major. My University is Memorial University in Ontario. I am extremely glad that I decided to do this internship. I did it to get a chance to study abroad and experience the day-to-day life of a dentist before I begin to enter school. This has been an amazing experience; from the beginning, the coordinators have been extremely helpful, even before my arrival. All the information was provided even before I asked, and that made me feel comfortable and safe. The nurses and doctors here at Yoda were very helpful from the beginning. They felt more than happy to answer any questions that I had. It was especially interesting to watch the various procedures that I saw, because my dentist was actually a surgical specialist.

During this internship in Greece was just a bonus that the clinic is situated downtown, so I had the chance to explore the city. Do various tourist activities and then even get the chance to see some Greek islands. So, if there’s anyone considering doing this internship with Cerca Abroad, they offer a very wide range of things. I recommend it.

Hello, my name is Cheyenne Dabel, I’ve been in this program at the Metropolitan General and I am from the United States, Utah area. I wanted to come to shadow here because I plan to apply to medical school in the April/May season that’s coming up and what’s a better place to come to Greece to shadow. Some highlights from my experience here is a lot of different surgeries. I saw plastic surgeries, general surgery, and cardiac surgery. So, you get to have a bit of everything. Every day I would see something different.

The coordination with this program was very good. Every need I had was answered and taken care of right away. Greece was the best place to be and Athens is a very busy place but you get used to it fast and you get to walk fast as well. So, I had a lovely time.

Hello. My name is Mariia. I am from Ukraine. I am a physiotherapy student. I study physiotherapy in the Netherlands. I was required to take a few weeks of internship, so I’ve chosen to come to Athens, Greece. I am very happy with my stay. I found it very helpful. I’ve seen many interesting things, for example, I was allowed to observe surgeries in surgery rooms, and that was a life-changing experience. So, hopefully, you would enjoy it too.

The Cerca agency is helpful. If I had any questions or if I had a requirement regarding my internship, they would help. I communicated with them easily. For example, I wanted to see more surgeries and that would be coordinated easily. Generally, I enjoy my stay in Athens. I’ve been to some Greek islands and I am planning to visit some more after finishing this program. So, I think you would enjoy it here too.

Hello, I am Driti Patel and I come from Morehead State University in the United States. I chose the medical internship because I want to go into the medical field. I am studying to be a doctor with a goal to be a pediatrician one day. My experience here was great. I loved it here. The departments were all nice. My favorite was the OD department; we got to see amazing surgeries.

The coordination here was nice, we were able to find everything nicely. The place we were living in was nice. It was close to our internship placement as well.

I loved Athens. It was a great place, a very beautiful city. The internship is great as well as the tourist areas. It’s all amazing. I do recommend it.

Hi, my name is Rofiat Dairo, I am from Manchester, U.K. and I go to Loyola University of Chicago, Illinois. I chose this internship because I wanted how medicine is first time really and be able to get myself into it, walk along with the doctors and how the experience would be and when I am actually to be a doctor. My experience with this internship, every opportunity I was given it was absolutely amazing and brilliant and something I never thought I would be doing in less than a few years, because of Covid actually. I loved it.

The coordination of the program was brilliant. It was amazing. I got to see some cool surgeries. Athens was great, I would definitely come back again. Yes, it was a great time. I would definitely do it again.

Hi, I am Irine, I am from Ontario, Canada and I am nineteen years old. I am majoring in Biology and I chose this program because I was interested in the medical field. I wanted to experience the workplace and how things get run around the hospital. My experience with the internship was amazing. We got to learn a lot from teachers and even surgeons. I really loved to see the OD department and be able to see so many great surgeons. I got to see an open heart surgery the other day. That was a life-changing experience.

The program was coordinated extremely well. Where I was staying was very pleasant. It was great to communicate back and forth with my workplace. The tourist areas were so nice to explore. I would definitely recommend coming to Athens. Whether it’s for the internship or just for tourism. It’s a beautiful place and I will definitely come back.

Hello, my name is Naomi Shah and I am from America. I study biology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. I chose to do this internship because I thought that it would be a great opportunity to get a lot of hands-on experience.

Especially since dentistry interests me and I wanted to pursue my passion for it. I was able to see a lot of new techniques and surgeries and luckily I had the opportunity to shadow a pediatric dentist as well as a general dentist. So, at my time with the pediatric dentist I was able to see how treatment with surgery with children is really different to with adults. Specifically, things that the dentist paid attention to and there was something that I really enjoyed, especially considering the fact that I am doing my md in pediatric dentistry; it was really a great experience. And then, with my time with Dr Costas here I was able to see many interesting treatments like root canals, implants, how to take impressions, cyst removal, a lot of cool things and he was able to teach me a lot of terminology and the tools he uses. So he was showing everything as he treated the person, which was very informational and helpful for me.

I am overall so happy with my experience with Cerca Abroad. I would totally recommend it to anyone that is considering it. I had a very seamless transition and the managers were willing to help me the whole time. Before I came here they gave me a lot of information. Once I got here they were always willing to help, so I am really glad I got to do this. Overall I am even happier I got to do it in Athens, since the city is so lovely, the people are so nice, there’s so much to do, the food is great, so I definitely enjoyed the program. Thank you.

Hello, I am Isabelle Lu from Taiwan. Currently I am studying wildlife at the National Taiwan University. The reason I wanted to come to this internship program is because we don’t have a lot of wildlife in Taiwan and I really wanted to get to know that. Also I wanted to get this chance to travel and explore and try to get along with myself. Somehow I’ve met with a lot of school friends here. So I’m really grateful for this program. For me the highlight of the program is actual conservation of wildlife. There are a lot of wildlife animals and birds like seagulls, flamingos and a lot of falcons, owls and everything. I had to prepare for them, take care of the cages and try to help with the vet.

The people of the program are all very warm. They were always there to answer my questions with patience and try to teach me more. So, this is more than I expected.

For me the coordination is like, awesome, because since I was still in Taiwan they would check on me and when I have sent a lot of messages asking a lot of random questions such as what I should bring with me, they would always answer the soonest possible. As for my arrival in Greece, they started to check on me in a weekly basis as about my well being, how do I do, how the program’s doing and everything. And when I decided to travel they wanted to meet me in person which is very great. I’m very grateful for that. In my perspective I think that Thessaloniki is a very cute city. The people there are always so wonderful and I met some of them in the street and we became friends. I also like the view of the host in Thessaloniki, you never feel alone even in the night. I really loved those historical sites and the food there. Since I am a vegetarian it is hard for me to find food randomly in Taiwan but it’s so easy here and everything is so delicious.

Hi, my name is Shivani Setti, I am from Calgari, Alberta, which is in Canada and the University of Calgari. The reason why I chose this program is because the opportunity of working in this hospital, the experience that I got to seek in this hospital and physically get to view the operations, being able to talk to some of the patients here and also the experience of how other hospitals work in other cities and countries.

I think that the program was really nice. How friendly everyone was and how it was really easy to communicate with others even despite the language barrier. I liked it how easy it was to use the trains here and how accessible everything is, like, in one block there are like coffee shops. It’s really nice. Even the apartment that we got to stay was really nice and convenient. It was really close to the hospital. I just had to take the train and come here. It was really nice.

The city of Athens was also very beautiful. It’s a shame I came here during the winter time but for where I come from this is really warm. I didn’t even have to wear winter jackets, which was really nice. The city has a lot of history and diversity which I really enjoyed and I felt comfortable and I enjoyed my stay here.

Concerning the program that I was part of, I really enjoyed it, I would definitely come back if I had the time. When I have time to come back, I would come to Athens through this program and gain more experience working in this hospital.

My mane is Suhani, I am from Calgari which is in Alberta, it’s a province in Canada. I went to UBC which is the University of British Columbia, I went to Okanangan Campus, and I graduated in 2021.

I chose to do an internship here at Iasis because I have a medical undergraduate degree in microbiology and I decided that I wanted to go into a master’s in counselling. So I have a biological and genetic bicrobio background that I really wanted to get more counselling and psychological and sociological support background. A little bit more exposure to counselling and that area to help bridge those two departments to help me in genetic counselling because you are working with healthcare, which combines both those fields. So, when I was looking for opportunities, unfortunately, there were not as many hands-on or shadowing opportunities in the region where I’m from. Especially around Calgary because of the way, but there are other volunteering opportunities. So, when I was looking for options, I decided to look abroad, and I found this particular internship.

What I really liked about it, is that it allowed me to learn about different sides of psychological and sociological support, systems that are available internationally, in different cultures, this has been my first time in Greece and Athens, so I was able to learn a lot about the culture, the people, how diverse it is. I did not realize how diverse Athens is. I mean, how populated it is compared to where I am from. We have a fraction of the amount of people that we do here in the city. There were a lot of similarities that I’ve noticed as well because I was born in India. So I’ve visited Mumbai and Bangor many times throw-out my life, so there are a lot of cultural similarities between Indian cities and Athens, I have noticed. So I think it was easier for me to adjust, get used to the city life, the transit, the people, the communication style. It was also very helpful, a lot of people spoke English here, so I think that people here in general are very open, kind, and very expressive I’ve noticed. It’s very different to where I am from.

Some things that I’ve found interesting during my internship is- because I don’t speak Greek- I had to rely a lot upon non- verbal ques so a lot of facial expressions, social queues, things that I would not necessarily be able to tell based on the language but looking on inflections and the way that people are speaking rather that what they’re exactly saying. Also I’ve had support with other interns and volunteers who were able to translate for me, but at the moments that I was unable to I feel like you can learn a lot based off of how people behave. Based on social ques there. The way they interact with one another and other volunteers and other social workers and psychologists here, I could see the changes from the beginning of a group activity towards the end. For some people there was like an increase in their mood, they were more social towards the end, they felt better, whereas for others it was like a gradual progress. It was very settling. You have to be really paying attention to their social ques to really see the difference, but it was noticeable. Another thing that I found very interesting is the similarities and the different types of psychosocial support that is available here and in Canada, so things like CBT, group activities, I’ve had to deal with mood, social ques, social skills, some of similar group activities like having an exercise component in order to deal with the psychological side of mood but then also have like talking within a group, introductions, styles of activities, the questions, the work, which are very similar to group activities that I’ve seen in other psychosocial support groups in Canada. So I thought that was really interesting, how despite being miles and miles apart- completely different country and culture- a lot of the practices, the types of support are very similar, it’s very applicable because at the end of the day we are all humans. We all need very similar things.

I am very happy with the internship coordination here. They were very accommodating. We got lots of support. If I had any questions I was able to ask. Get direct answers very quickly as well. So I didn’t necessarily feel like thrown in the middle of nowhere. That was very helpful. I really did enjoy my stay here, I think that people in general are very helpful. If I got lost or if I had questions about certain things that I didn’t really understand what was going on, I could just ask, and then there was no fear and no judgment, at least none that I could perceive. Thank you so much.