Educational site visit to Cambodia
Bernadette Thomas travelled to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for an educational site visit and evaluated the possibility of carrying out an acute kidney injury incidence study. This blog post details the outcome of her trip.
Medical Students who are at the end of their medical training assembled for two teaching sessions over two consecutive days. Day one involved a two-hour lecture on the utility of urine microscopy for evaluating and constructing a differential for acute and chronic kidney disease.
The session was well attended, and a questions and answers session followed the lecture. Dr. Niv Rathvirak, Nephrologist from the Division of Nephrology at Calmette, attended the session to provide support and translation as necessary. Day two was supposed to involve a session on renal pathology, but the students asked if I would instead speak on when and how to use urine electrolytes.
I also visited to Calmette Hospital, which was chosen to serve as a site for an acute peritoneal dialysis (PD) program supported by the ISN and Sustainable Kidney Care Foundation.
Dr. Sovann Kanitha was chosen to travel to Thailand, along with a hemodialysis nurse from Calmette, to receive training on performing acute PD. Both doctor and nurse were trained, supplies successfully delivered to Calmette from Thailand, and patients received acute PD treatment for acute AKI. In two years, only three patients received PD, so the purpose of my site visit was to discover why. In order to address the paucity of Cambodian data regarding etiology and burden of AKI, I also spoke with three perspective research sites for data collection. The overall trip was successful on an educational level. I received several follow-up emails from students requesting slides used in the presentation.
The acute PD Program was successfully initiated, with successful treatment of three patients and there was a lack of complications.
There were requests from the director of Subspecialities, for additional training of another Nephrologist (and nurse) in order to strengthen the program and facilitate plans for creating a PD center of Excellence at Calmette Medical Center. Finally, there is interest, and need, for a multi-site AKI Incidence Study.
