Air Force medics treat Cambodians

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Daniel McKittrick
  • Detachment 10, Air Force News Agency
MONDOL KIRI, Cambodia (AFNEWS) --  Meeting patients' needs in remote Cambodia is a challenge to say the least, but for a team of primary care providers from Brooks City-Base, Texas, it's worth every barrier that is conquered.

Members of the Medical Civil Action Program helped those in need Jan. 28 to Feb. 4 in Mondol Kiri, Cambodia. The clinic treated more than 2,100 patients the best they can with what they have making the mission special to those involved. 

The primary care clinic isn't set up for emergency situations like large lacerations or spinal fractures but rather the common ailments. 

 "We see children, infants with cold, cough, runny nose, belly pain, skin disorders... we see men with a lot of muscular-skeletal problems from all the work that they're doing... we see people with rashes and problems with their liver, malaria, TB... those sorts of things," said primary care physician Maj. Cheryl Lowery.

"There's a language barrier so we always have to work through a translator," she said. "The translators are very good but we lose a little bit of the patient education and the patient complaint in the translation. 

Lack of supplies is another barrier, she said. 

"We have a limited amount of supplies that we travel with and there's always that one thing that you wanted that you just don't have and we have that luxury in the states ... we can go back to our pharmacy at home and get what we need."


"I get personal satisfaction and education out of it," Major Lowry, from Cheyenne, Wyo. said. "I enjoy seeing patients in this environment. I just like to come and learn about another culture and see the different disease that they have in this country that we don't get to see very often... you read about them in a textbook but you don't get to see them as often in our country." 

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