My first blog: intro to the Battambang Hospital

Hello family and friends! The next 5 weeks will be so busy with research that I fear I will not have time to update all of you individually. So, you are witnessing the abrupt corruption of my internet blog virginity. Welcome! Pictures will be minimal, since only pictures taken on my ipad can be uploaded, but stories will be maximally entertaining. I hope to give you insight into Cambodian culture by taking you through my experience working in the country's second largest hospital in a very cool city called Battambang. I'll start with a description of the research study: I am working through Stanford Emergency Medicine International, and we are conducting an epidemiological study on emergencies presenting to Cambodian hospitals. The goal at the end of the study is to identify the most common emergencies and focus on them in future training of Cambodian hospital nurses and doctors.  To conduct the study, we ask new patients information about their illness or injury, and fill their answers out on an iPad.  We will then be following up with the patients (most have cell phones, or have a neighbor or family member with a cell phone) at 48 hrs and 2 weeks to see what their outcome was.  We have translators with us the entire time, and they are our key to communicating with the patients, their families and the doctors and nurses. The hospital here is worlds different from at home. A gate surrounds the hospital campus, which has buildings for the different departments scattered throughout a courtyard.  There is no air conditioning, only the occasional fan.  They are in the process of building the hospital's first emergency room, and there is no triage system at all. There is no such thing as "visiting hours", so the rooms are quite lively, with kids running around, hammocks slung up in the trees outside, and women cooking in the courtyard. It is quite a scene, and I am so excited to be a part of it. Enjoy, and feel free to email, facebook or skype call to say hello!