Morris County to Cambodia BlogWednesday, June 27, 2007
Dr. Bruce Mintz of Mountain Lakes, his daughter, Jessie, and family friend Mike LoBiondo, in conjunction with Morristown Memorial Hospital, are traveling to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to help establish medical clinics and offer medical education Sihanouk Hospital. They will blog regularly during their mission.
Posted at DailyRecord.com
Well, our first entry was delayed by our 23 hour flight combined with our arrival in Cambodia in the late evening. At 7am the three first members of our team made our way to Sihanouk Hospital of Hope. Our arrival was highlighted by countless paradoxes. The Poverty of the Capital city Phnom Penh is profound, yet each person one sees on the street makes eye contact followed almost instantaneously by the most generous of smiles. The gentleness of the culture draws such contrast to the recent history of this country so recently ravaged by civil strife and armed conflict. I could not extract my memory of the daily news from this city cataloguing the carnage from the overt and sincere kindness of each of our encounters.
We entered the hospital and were given a short tour lasting about an hour at which we were introduced to the surgical team. As we had been informed previously the doctors were uniformly young, enthusiastic and eager to hear the initial lectures we had prepared on vascular disease which is a common occurrence here. Though a language barrier existed it did not seem to impede healthy discourse and the quality of the physicians' clinical skills formed a sharp contrast to the sparse technology. Physicians from various countries roamed the halls of the hospital very much as we did. We made rounds in the surgical unit finding several candidates in need of the technology which had been provided by Morristown Memorial Hospital. Prior to our arrival and that of these recent acquisitions Vein imaging had not been attempted. We spent the mourning working with skilled and engaged Cambodian physicians who caught on quickly.
It was a first day in a world away, but one marked by the hustle of hoards of people in the streets and local medical personnel armed with a sense of purpose, and the kind of humanity that would draw anyone to a life in the healing arts. All in all, a great day.
-Dr. Bruce Mintz, D.O.
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