Education

Recently I completed a placement in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, my first contact with a completely different country and culture. I thought I had prepared myself for the placement, Three and a half years of studying and i thought i was more than qualified to treat and teach. I couldn't have been more wrong. to give some context Cambodia has been at war since the thirteen hundreds and the latest travesty was dealt by the hand of fellow Khmer, A political regime named the Khmer rouge murdered greater than a million people of the educated and intellectual Khmer population, essentially devastating their intellectual infrastructure across the board.

We started at our rehabilitation centre and I had trouble treating patients, the language barrier compounded by my ignorance served to hamstring my treatment sessions. I spoke to patients and facility staff assuming they had some level of knowledge of health. I mean we get taught basic health and anatomy at primary school, every Australian has a basic level of understanding about their body. It wasn't till i grasped the extent of devastation caused by the rouge that i could fully comprehend how illiterate the Khmer people are.
I quickly changed my approach and made my whole education a lot simpler. Sacrificing specific details and options to ensure that the essential information was delivered and understood. After this i found my rapport with patients improved and the staff we were working with understood what we were doing.
It guess my take home message is don't assume that every patient you treat will understand even the very basics and its important to identify this in order to be effective.