Last full day

This afternoon we gave our final lecture. We had a smaller group and they were not as talkative so much more work for us. We had spent the morning writing test questions and reviewing the new information that had been presented during journal club. I had mentioned that in my practice, we use a weak (10%) bleach solution for some types of skin disinfectants thinking that because it is inexpensive, it might be useful in this setting. This was a bit of a radical idea and as I reflected on it, I was not sure I should have talked about this. To my surprise, Sophal (the director of Nursing) found a reference to using this in the WHO manual. This legitimized the idea so we discussed possible uses. The other new piece of information related to a type of bacteria that can grow in a commonly used antiseptic. I was able to locate a reference for this to reinforce that information (go Google!) which allows them to think about changing practice. Barbara and I have been reflecting on exactly what we have accomplished with this trip and I think it is these little nuggets of incidental information as much as the lectures that have made a contribution. Anytime you can give information that changes nursing practice to make it safer, you have contributed something worthwhile. Many of the more useful pieces of information we have talked about were not part of formal lectures but examples we used to clarify concepts. Interesting how that works.
The dress code at the hospital is different. All nurses and administrators wear the same light blue cotton uniforms but shoes can be anything so we see flip flops and cute shoes with heels. In the US we only wear closed toed shoes for safety reasons so this looks pretty weird. I brought closed toe shoes to wear at the hospital but I need not have bothered.
Because of the heat, we chose to go to the closest restaurant for lunch. It is an American style coffee shop with pretty good food. For the first week we ate only Khmer food which is quite good, although they tend to leave the heads on the fish. It is somewhere between Vietnamese and Thai which makes sense since Cambodia is between those countries. My personal favorite is Green Mango salad which I intend to have one more time before we go. We have eaten French, Indian, Vietnamese, Scandinavian and pseudo-American while we are here. I think eating at home sounds really good. As does cool weather but I won’t be saying that next week. I have seen how cold it is at home.