Had a great translator named Muny who was very patient with me and taught me some Khmer words so I could greet each of my patients and ask what the problem was.

Susday - Hello
Aukun - Thank you
Chum Reap Sue - greeting
Chiin Awaii - pain
Saat - cute
Min pan ya haa awaii- what is your problem


Saw lots of patients every day but a few really stood out to me.  A woman with 15 children who came in complaining of exhaustion.  Oldest child was 20 youngest was 2.  On top of that she gave birth to triplets 15 years ago! I was exhausted just hearing about her life.  Sadly I had to tell her we had no medicine to give her enough energy to care for 15 children but I did give her a decent supply of iron and multivitamins.


 Because Poipet is a city on the border with Thailand many parents will sneak across the (land mine riddled) border to work for several months on end leaving their children alone at home.  I saw several kids as young as 6 years old who came to the clinic by themselves to be seen.  It was pretty obvious they had never seen a doctor before and they tried so hard to be brave.  When I told them I was going to listen to their hearts they had no idea if it was going to hurt or not and they would stand there with huge eyes shaking a little bit but trying to be so stoic.  Their little hearts would always race the first minute I listened and after they realized it wasn't going to hurt the heart rate would finally slow down.
 Twins - mom says she can't even tell them apart but they are 7 years old and look like they are around 4. Treated them both for worms so hopefully they will start putting on some weight.

 The little boy in the picture above was brought in by his neighbor. He is 8 years old, his mother is dead and his father works in Thailand for months on end.  So this little boy takes care of his 4 year old and 2 year old sisters at home...all by himself. He does not go to school and was very malnourished.  The neighbor says she checks on them when she can but has her own kids to take care of.  He looked so serious and sad...  I just wanted to take him and sisters home with me so he could learn how to be a little boy again without the weight of feeding and caring for his siblings on his shoulders.

There were so many heartbreaking stories but also many good things like cute healthy babies - which always cheered me up when I started to feel overwhelmed.  Mom's would wait hours in the hot sun just to have their children and babies examined by a doctor.  After a thorough physical exam I would tell the moms that the kids/babies looked very healthy and what a good job they were doing which brought tears to many mothers eyes.  They would tell me - thank you thats all I needed to hear.   I kept thinking to myself if I had a child and they had never been seen by a doctor before I would probably wait hours in the hot sun just to make sure everything was okay.

We had an eye Optometrist on the team who gave out over 1000 pairs of glasses while we were there. This woman received glasses and was able to read clearly for the first time she was so happy she couldn't stop thanking us.