Mission to Cambodia 2013
Brittany Woods
The School of Nursing is again sponsoring a student mission trip to Cambodia this May and students and faculty are posting about their experiences. Keep watch here over the next two weeks for new posts!
Today was our first day was our first day to go out into Cambodia, and my group was going to the Sihanouk Hospital Center of Hope. The group consists of 7 girls and it is led by Mrs. Taplin and Mrs. Blank. For those of us who have never been to Cambodia before we were very excited to see what this hospital was like and to interact with the people, and for the returners, they were excited to get back and reunite with some familiar faces and begin helping.
After squeezing 9 of us into a small SUV, we arrived and our day began. People were waiting to greet us with their warm smiles and it made us all feel welcome. Introductions were followed by splitting us into groups and sending us to different parts of the hospital. I was told to go to the Emergency Department with two of the other girls. We were all a little anxious because we didn’t know what to expect or what they might have us do. It turned out to be a really awesome experience. I began my day by working the triage table outside of the ED with one of the doctors. At first I just watched how he went through the process and eventually he let me take over with taking vital signs and documenting in their charts. He would translate for me but the language barrier has been very difficult to overcome. I felt as if I was probably just as frustrating to him because of all the times I asked him to repeat what he had said. After some time I was able to interpret most of what he was telling me and things began to go much smoother. It was awesome getting to interact with all of the patients and see how their culture differs from our in relation to health care. I have never seen a more patient group of people. They were sitting outside in the heat for hours just waiting for their names to be called but you never heard a complaint from them.
The doctor I was working alongside was also helping in the emergency room when they needed him, so we would get up and leave the triage table for long periods of time so that he could help care for a patient in need. Whenever he left the triage area no one would take over, and it made me feel so bad for all of the people have to wait. I just kept thinking to myself how much complaining and arguing would take place if this were to happen at a hospital in Nashville. At one point a man sitting in the back of a van was driven up right in front of the triage table and was too sick to get out so went went into the van to take his vitals and assess what was going on. You just don’t see too many people being able to pull right up to the triage desk and get taken care of in the back of their van in the United States. It was a very cool experience.
There was one other patient that I saw that day, along with one of the other girl’s in the group, that was very sad to see. A woman who I had helped to triage earlier was in the ER and I walked in on them performing CPR and eventually having to intabate her. I had never seen that in real life and it was very troubling to watch and to see the family standing and watching it all happen. There were so many patients there that day with all sorts of differing diseases and I felt very blessed to even be a small part of some of their days. Even though I could not communicate with them I felt as if a simple smile went a long way. Overall, my time in the ER was very memorable and it was such a joy getting to experience this aspect of their culture and interact with the patients and their families. It was truly rewarding.
At this point the day was half way over and it was time for lunch. Someone from the hospital kindly ordered us pizza for lunch and to our surprise all of the pizzas had some sort of seafood on them. We were all a little taken back by the shrimp, mushroom and crab pizza sitting in front of us. I’m not saying it was bad, just not expected. However, we all were so hungry that it didn’t matter what they put on it. We were going to eat it anyway! After lunch I had the opportunity to help facilitate CPR checkoffs to a class at the hospital. Mrs. Taplin, Mrs. Blank and a couple of other girls had been working with them for half of the day and after lunch I got the privilege of helping, as well. It made us all so happy at the end of the day because each of the students passed not only the checkoffs but also the written exam. Seeing how anxious they were during both the checkoffs and the exam, and then that anxiety turning into such joy was a blessing to me and I was thankful to see it unfold.
I think I can speak for my entire group when I say we truly enjoyed our time there. We each had different experiences and stories that we were excited to share with the group when we all came together. One thing that we all realized on this visit to the hospital was how insanely different it is to receive care here than in the U.S. Everything from how waiting rooms operate, to teaching, to sterile technique and safety all differ from the standard of care that we are used to. This was a great opportunity for us to step out of the bubble we sometimes find ourselves in back home, and experience something that may be completely different from what we are accustomed to. It was a great way to start our trip and to really get us excited for everything to come.