last week onboard...

The past few days have gone by so quickly! So on Friday, I was part of the local MEDCAP team. It was about a 45 minute bus ride outside of town, but there were still a huge amount of people to treat. It was the only local site, so we had much more pharmacy staff than all of the other MEDCAPs that I had been to. There were 6 pharmacy technicians, one Mercy pharmacist, 2 Japanese pharmacists, and a handful of translators that were all helping to make the pharmacy run smoothly. This large staff made for a much more manageable day compared to all of the others. During our lunch break we were able to walk down the street to some local vendors who were selling rice, meat, and pastries. There was even a fried toucan at one of the stands! On Saturday I was on the AM shift in the pharmacy from 7am-7pm, but the pharmacist let me go to the OR in the morning to watch a surgery on a 4 year old boy. They did a right hernia repair and right hydrocele fenestration. It was a really short and uncomplicated surgery, but it was really neat to see a different side of medical practice. I thought that I may not be able to stomach a surgery, but I was surprised how calm and at ease I was in the OR. In the afternoon, I got a lot of practice in the IV room with some tips and guidance from a really talented technician. We also had some excitement in the afternoon with a code situation. It was awesome to see the pharmacy react in a very quick, efficient, and calm manner in this circumstance! At the end of my shift, I repacked the supplies for the last MEDCAP on Sunday. We packed a lot of extra supplies which was a good thing because we really needed them the next day. On Sunday, I got to go to the final MEDCAP of our mission in Cambodia. It was a really busy day and we saw and treated over 1600 patients. Even though we took extra supplies, we still ended up running out of a lot of medications. Sunday night it was nice to have the whole pharmacy team back together again. We had missed the 5 members who have been out on the fly-away MEDCAPs! We all hung out in the pharmacy and shared stories about our individual experiences in Cambodia. I really loved it here and I plan on coming back someday to see all of the sights that we did not get a chance to see. Some of the people onboard got the opportunity to take a day trip to Ankorwat, an ancient Buddhist temple that is one of the 7 wonders of the world. They said it was an incredible sight, so I would really love to see it. Also, I would like to visit the capital, Phnom Phen, because I have heard that it is a fantastic city to spend time in. So on Monday at 1500 we started underway to Singapore! It is a bitter sweet feeling for me because I have loved my time onboard so much that I do not want to leave. But it will be nice to go home and see everyone that I have been missing for the past 5 weeks. I do love being underway though! It is fun to go out on the deck with the sun shining and the wind in my hair. I am really going to miss that feeling. Actually, I’m going to miss a lot about being on the Mercy. This was a wonderfully rewarding experience both personally and professionally, and I will surely never forget it! (written June 27 -- the internet on the Mercy is really unreliable, so I had to post this when I got home)