FIDR has been providing trainings for surgeons and medical staff in Kratie Provincial Referral Hospital (KPRH) which is located in the northeast Cambodia with the purpose of improving the medical services in the area.

In-hospital training is one of the trainings. The aim of this training is to review the daily work and improve medical services by sharing knowledge and experience about diseases and treatment methods between hospital’s staff.

As a part of in-hospital training, the first online medical study session was conducted on March 11, 2021. Surgeons and nurses from the Department of Surgery at KPRH and anesthetist, Dr. Kobashi Yurie from Japan, participated in the session.

The theme of the session was "Anesthesia for Caesarean section" and participants actively exchanged opinions on the differences between Cambodia and Japan regarding the flow of anesthesia procedures, written informed consent to be obtained from patients, preoperative examinations to be performed, restrictions on food and drinking water before the surgery, types of anesthetics and methods of usage, etc.

In particular, they seemed to be interested in the criteria for choosing between general and spinal anesthesia in patients undergoing a cesarean section, the differences between anesthetics and methods of determining the level of anesthesia for patients.

One hospital staff said, "I learned a lot about the usage of different anesthesia methods depending on the urgency of surgery". Furthermore, there were a number of findings for each staff, such as no significant differences in the type of consent forms obtained from patients, the type of tests performed before surgery, or the time of dietary restrictions.

Other staff mentioned that "By explaining our anesthesia method to a Japanese doctor, we were able to concretely understand that what are commonplace for us may differ in other countries such as Japan”. This was a valuable opportunity to have a look at their skills and knowledge.

In Cambodia, due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, the movement of people is restricted which had an impact on the project's activities. Dr. Kobashi commented, "In order to continue conducting online study sessions, a stable internet environment is necessary. I am glad to know that the Internet environment is getting better in Cambodia, and we can conduct such an online study session without any problems. I think we need to hold more training sessions like this in the future."

We will continue on providing trainings for surgeons and hospital staff by applying new methods which are suitable for the situation.

Picture in the right: Dr. Kobashi
Picture in the left: KPRH staff, Ms. Ariun - Project’s deputy manager, Kimratanak – FIDR Project facilitator