Guest Report

[Olivia Baker]

I spent 7 weeks at Shirma's apartments while doing my elective at Scarborough General Hospital. Shirma is SO WELL EQUIPPED for medical students as she has had so many stay in the past.

Staying here made my elective the great experience that it was. Shirma and her family live on site, and they are all so friendly and welcoming and really go out of their way to be helpful. Clifford, Shirma's husband, gave us a lift to the hospital every morning, and Shirma has a number of taxi contacts for the return trip. Shirma gave us local pay as you go phones to use during our stay. On a Sunday Shirma cooked us a lunch of local food, and this was the best food I had. I miss Shirma's plantain so much! On a Monday we were taken to the local veg market and supermarket to stock up for the week (try the smoothies!). I was especially grateful for the hospitality during the first 3 weeks when I was the only student (I had my elective at an unusual time) and Shirma was always checking in with me.

The apartments are very spacious, have washing facilities, en suites and air conditioning.
The area of Bacolet where the apartments are situated is very safe and close enough to Scarborough to walk if needed. There is a beach club about 15 minutes walk from Shirma's that allows medical students to use facilities if they buy a drink from the beach bar, which we used LOTS.

I definitely recommend staying at Shirma's as a medical elective student.