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From the Classroom to Cambodia

Since 2007, Dr. Rick Henker, the director of HVO’s anesthesia project in Siem Reap, Cambodia, has been taking his students from the University of Pittsburgh to Angkor Hospital for Children (AHC) to teach, learn, and connect with other students and staff. Adrian Bermudez was one such student who traveled to AHC in February 2024 with Dr. Henker. Here, he shares his reflection on the experience.

I’m very grateful to have visited Cambodia for a second time as an SRNA. When I last visited five years ago, I was a naïve nursing student who didn’t have any real-world experience to be able to compare the hospitals in the United States to those in Cambodia. I realize now how wasteful hospitals in the United States are compared to AHC, who reuse practically anything that can be disinfected. The first thing that amazed me upon arriving at AHC was how welcoming and helpful the entire staff (anesthesia/nursing/surgery) was towards my fellow classmates and me. They treated us as if we were close friends and always made us feel comfortable in our new setting. I hope to return the favor when they visit Pittsburgh in the future! By the end of week two, I had performed numerous field blocks, a few retrobulbar blocks, two ilioinguinal nerve blocks, and even a caudal. One of my main clinical goals was to successfully perform a retrobulbar block, and now I can say that I’ve done something that many CRNAs have never done before. It is truly amazing to witness how the CRNAs in Cambodia excel in placing nerve blocks both with and without ultrasound. They all know their anatomy very well and take their pain control methods very seriously, which is something I hope to adopt in my future practice as a CRNA.

I also noticed how important a role the family members play in comforting their child after any sort of operation. It was both surprising and comforting to see the child’s parent or grandparent immediately at their bedside after the procedure, sometimes acting as the PACU nurse in the minor procedure room. I think this plays a large part in why many of the children at AHC do not experience emergence delirium or have immense postop pain, because they have their beloved family member comforting them after surgery when they wake up. The value Cambodians place on their family is very high; it was comforting to witness such strong relationships between the patients and their family members.

Finally, I did not realize how much I would miss the food in Cambodia. Not only is the food here very cheap, but every meal I’ve eaten so far was made with very fresh and healthy ingredients. I enjoyed eating traditional Khmer dishes such as beef lok lak and fish amok, all the way to the Italian food at Mamma Shop and the Mexican food at Maybe Later. Lastly, I wish the United States would adopt Cambodian’s practice of a two-hour lunch break, as this is probably one of the reasons morale is so high at AHC and why everyone works very well together.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Henker’s student teams and the HVO anesthesia project at AHC, this article from a 2023 Volunteer Connection shares further details.

For more information on volunteering, visit the anesthesia program page on our website or contact Natalie Cary at n.cary@hvousa.org.