Hans Bode ('27), a dual major in Health and Societies and Economics, spent this past summer serving as a Development Officer intern at Bwiam General Hospital through Power Up Gambia. The internship gave Hans the opportunity to experience both the financing of a hospital and the daily clinical work, affirming his interest in global health. This experience was supported by the Franklin Opportunity Fund, an internship funding opportunity for Benjamin Franklin Scholars.
This summer, I interned at Bwiam General Hospital in Gambia through Power Up Gambia. I found this internship through GRIP, and was funded by them as well as through the Franklin Opportunity Fund.
Power Up Gambia focuses on building sustainable solar energy systems for healthcare facilities. In this placement, I worked as a Development Officer Intern supporting hospital staff in identifying the financial and physical constraints affecting patient care and helping shape longer-term outreach and fundraising strategy to address them.
While my title emphasized development work, my day-to-day experience blended clinical exposure, infrastructure support, and communications, all while adapting to a new environment.
From the first week, I actively sought learning opportunities from clinicians. In the RMNCAH ward, I worked with children under five alongside Kaddy, a nurse who taught me how to scribe and walked me through procedures for cases ranging from fevers and convulsions to head trauma. In the HIV clinic, Fatou trained me on the prescription process and pushed me to learn treatments, including protocols to prevent transmission from mothers to newborns. I quickly learned how eager the staff were to teach, and their generosity gave me a foundation in both medicine and patient care.
In parallel, I worked on longer-term projects tied directly to hospital operations and fundraising. With two other interns, I wrote proposals for major improvements: upgrading the oxygen piping system to reduce fire hazards, adding mortuary refrigeration, and strengthening the HIV clinic through requests for tablets, vehicles, and phone credits to expand outreach. I also documented the hospital’s work by photographing staff and facilities, editing images in Lightroom, and using Elementor and WordPress to refresh the hospital website with new visuals and stories, because better communications translated into stronger donor engagement. One moment that stayed with me was when we secured $1,600 for the HIV clinic; the clinic head, Ibrahim, celebrated because the clinic was “usually forgotten.”
Pictured: Hans Bode with Dom, a fellow intern, after their C-section observation
Some parts of the experience tested me personally. I wasn’t sure how I’d react to blood, and early on I struggled – first during Tobaski, when I was asked to help with the sacrifice of rams, and later when I nearly fainted during an abscess removal. These moments made me question whether I was capable of pursuing medicine. Yet, with repeated exposure, I grew more resilient. A turning point came during a C-section observation, when I felt lightheaded but stayed present. I realized the work was not about never feeling discomfort but about staying steady through it.
One of the best parts of the internship was mentorship and collaboration of the hospital staff that made every day into a learning opportunity. On the other hand, the practical constraints like intermittent internet and delays for basic equipment posed significant challenges. However, even those challenges taught me adaptability in a resource-constrained setting.
This internship affirmed my interest in medicine and my broader commitment to global health. As an economics major on the pre-med track, I want to understand both the financing of health systems and the lived experiences within hospitals. My time in The Gambia showed me how deeply those two are connected, and it strengthened my resolve to pursue a career where I can bridge clinical practice with health equity work on a global scale.
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