Gap Medics

Overseas hospital work experience provider. Operates a mission-critical customer relationship management system and marketing site.

Achieved with CookiesHQ since April 2014

87%
increase in website users
81%
increase in organic search traffic
40%
increase in the number of enquiries

Providing once-in-a-lifetime experiences

The Gap Medics story began in 2005, when Dave Brown co-founded Work the World, one of the UK’s leading ethical travel companies, providing international hospital experience to medical students.

As the company and its reputation grew, enquiries from younger students increased. Many hadn’t started medical school, but wanted to gain experience and genuine insight into the realities of clinical medicine and surgery. Recognising that placements for pre-medical students required a fundamentally different approach than for near-qualified medics, Dave launched an entirely new programme – Gap Medics.

These days, Gap Medics has provided valuable international hospital work experience placements for thousands of 16 to 25-year-olds. Students shadow trusted health professionals ion a unique programme that helps them gain a better understanding of their chosen career path and develop as people.

“Working with Cookies is always interesting and fun – at the end of every week, we are always amazed to see just how much they have achieved, and how they have produced something that makes a real impact on the business. The team really understand our ideas and what we want to achieve, and always have positive inputs.”
- Rachel Plummer, Product owner at Gap Medics

Streamlining a complex system

With over 2,000 students embarking on a Gap Medics placement each year and over 50 team members located across the globe, managing placements requires strict organisation and structure. When Dave approached us in 2014, their internal CRM handled many of the basic elements of arranging and managing a placement. However, the team still used many external programmes, spreadsheets and documents to aid the process. Gap Medics needed a team to maintain their CRM and develop it into their central placement and business management tool.

We meet every quarter to discuss improvements to their CRM and marketing website. Since we began working with Dave and the Gap Medics team, our creative input and technical contribution has led to advancements across the company. Relationships with their students have improved and the process of managing and coordinating placements has become more streamlined. As the business expands, we continue to work with them to develop innovative solutions for their ongoing business objectives.

Technologies used: WordPress, Ruby on Rails, Mongoid, Elasticsearch, Amazon Web Services