137. Takeo Six: For Me?

Left: student Botha; Right: team RN

As happened in Mozambique (there fortuitious, here planned well in advance), medical students served as translators. I think they learned a lot, their studies not having yet exposed them to patients. I was explaining preeclampsia to one and drew some diagrams. Finished, I handed him the drawings; he looked surprised and asked, "For me?"

Three medical schools, two private schools teaching in English and the French-speaking government school, serve Cambodia's 14.8 million population. Private school tuition $1000 per year, going up to $2500 next year, they tell us. Combined, the three schools graduate about 150 new doctors per year every year, so one per 99,000. Compare that with America's yearly class of over 17,000, or one new doctor per 18,000.

Medical economists don't think that's enough to replace physicians who are retiring earlier than predicted, or who have cut back their hours. 

That retiring issue--not so much a problem in Cambodia, since many (most?) of retiring age physicians did not survive the Khmer Rouge brutality.