Working at the World Health Organization

What’s your view of the World Health Organization (WHO)? Do you recognise it as a vital centre of global public health: spearheading immunisation campaigns, coordinating emergency assistance to disaster zones, and providing crucial guidelines and statistics to inform decisions? Or do you see it another way—as a distant, management heavy organisation whose campaigns are too broad to create real local impact, with questions raised about its decision making processes and use of public funds?12

Medical students—and other students—are invited to undertake unpaid internships of between six and 12 weeks at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva.3 Does this seem like a good career move, or does unpaid work in the midst of the WHO machine not seem like the best way to spend three months of your life? And given that Geneva is an expensive place to live, does that—plus no pay—squeeze out less well off students and mean it’s just an