Needless to say, I am thrilled to be finally on land.
I’ve flown all the way here from Providence, Rhode Island to experience what will be my final rotation as a medical student. For better or worse, I’ve chosen to spend the time thousands of miles away from home—in Siem Riep, Cambodia. I will be doing a rotation out of Angkor Children Hospital, which is one of the main hospitals providing free care to the populated Siem Riep region.
I had known about the rotation for quite some time, as it has been long sought by med students and residents seeking a quality pediatric rotation outside the U.S. But I had personal reasons for coming here. One, of course, is my selfish desire to travel as much as possible before entering residency. The second is to improve my language skills enough to interact more fully with the large Cambodian population in Rhode Island. Seeing that I have matched into Brown University’s Medicine-Pediatric residency, I figured it would be worth having some extra language skills under my belt! :-)
Unfortunately, my first day around town was somewhat waylaid by the sudden onset of food poisoning not more than 3 hours after I arrived in Cambodia. (Serves me right for eating some suspicious-looking Korean airline food...) To add to the misery, it is an absolute sauna out here. Temperatures are easily in the mid to high 90s during the day, and they only dip down to the mid 80s at night. Air conditioning is not a given here. I am lucky enough to have a room with a semi-workable unit, but I know that’s not the case with many of the rooms at the hospital.
On another note, here's what my room looks like. My last trip to Cambodia included a few days in a rural village where there was no electricity and running water. So this is definitely much nicer than what I had experienced!
Anyway, I’m hoping to be symptom-free and volume-repleted enough to be functional tomorrow on my first day in the hospital. Wish me luck…
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