Medicorps takes over Telemedicine Training in Cambodia

Medicorps started the first formal telemedicine training in Cambodia on 11 December 2007. The first one week course for members of 11 hospitals was celebrated in Siem Reap in the presence of the Ministry of Health. amid flowers and refreshments.

Drs. Tep Lun and San Sary stressed the importance of connection to the rest of the world with the help of technology to further training and indirect patient help. Medicorps’ long experience in providing free specialist advice to Khmer physicians made it the ideal candidate to inaugurate this series of continued educational courses to teach the ins and outs of telemedicine.

In the past we witnessed the frustration of national physicians seeking needed advice via the Internet when both IT and English terminology became hurdles hard to overcome. That’s where we collaborated with the Cambodian Ministry of Health to start our training courses based on the curriculum provided to us courtesy of Dr. Lawrence Burgess, University of Hawaii. Over the next few months an ever increasing number of hospitals will send their staff to benefit from our courses.

We hope that a kind sponsor will provide us rather sooner than later with more badly needed computers and equipment. Ideally we would have state of the art training centers in the major cities, but in the meantime we will continue our effort with the limited resources we have.

One of these days, even the most remote locations in poor countries, such as Cambodia, will benefit from a technology that connects doctors and nurses over the Internet.