by Mackenzie Hodgson, Nursing Team
We started off the day with a devotional given by Megan which helped remind us of our original goals of coming to Cambodia. We then split off into two groups, the NP’s, a few undergrads and a few pharmacy students went to a village to set up a clinic. The others of us went to Hope Hospital to do leadership and management training with the nurses there.
After doing CPR training with the nurses over the past two days, they were much more comfortable and eager to learn from us today.
Most Cambodians are non-confrontational which can sometimes lead to errors in medical practice. Our goal of today was to teach the nurses how to obtain leadership roles and how to effectively communicate with one another to provide the best possible care for their patients. In between lecture material we would engage the nurses in activities designed to help them work together. When asking the nurses why they decided to become a nurse, i saw quite a few similarities among the reasons we all decided to become nurses. They gave reasons such as wanting to help people as well as provide for and help their families. They all showed heart and compassion which are key qualities in nursing.
Each of the activities we did challenged the nurses in different ways. The common theme was communication as well as using the communication skills to work well as a team. Some of the activities we did consisted of passing a hoola-hoop around without ever breaking the circle, and building a Lincoln Log house using on the memory of your teammates. We faced speed-bumps mostly with translation but it was really encouraging to see that with time the nurses began to understand and really enjoy themselves. We took a break for lunch and headed to Park Cafe and had a very authentic lunch. When we returned from lunch we started part two of the day which consisted of more lecture and team building exercises. At the end of the day it was very apparent how thankful the nurses were and i believe we learned more from them than they learned from us. We learned how to be patient, and at least for myself, i gained a deeper appreciation for what we do have in America.
When we returned from the hospital, we met back up with the group from the sick clinic and had the chance to hear about their day. Today they worked in an area that provided them only a small amount of shade and saw many patients all while keeping a positive attitude and enjoying every moment. Some of us then went to pick up our custom made shoes from Beautiful Shoes, while others went to Tabitha’s or to get coffee. We then gathered to go to a sister restaurant of Friend’s. We spent the meal catching up on our days, laughing at the adventurous items on the menu (Dr. Busby had Tree Ants and Tarantula’s for dinner), and talking about all the things we want when we get back to America.