March 23, 2007

Durant fellow changes lives in southeast Asia

When the Thomas S. Durant, MD, Fellowship in Refugee Medicine was established in 2001, MGH caregivers were given the opportunity to continue the legacy of its namesake — Thomas S. Durant, MD, the late MGH associate medical director and humanitarian — by bringing the MGH's world-class care to patients around the globe. One of the most recent MGHers to follow in Durant's footsteps is 2006 fellow, Chanda Plong, RN, (seen above) of Bigelow 11. She recounted her experiences working in southeast Asia during a presentation given Feb. 16.

Plong's journey began in July 2006 when she boarded the USNS Mercy, a U.S. Navy hospital ship, to participate in a three-month mission with the humanitarian organization Project HOPE. Making stops in Bangladesh, East Timor and Indonesia, the ship served as a "hospital on a boat" where patients could receive basic medical attention and care otherwise not available. The patients' needs were unpredictable, and providing them with proper care was only one of the challenges — limited medical supplies, typhoons, civil war and culture shock were also some of the obstacles Plong and her colleagues tackled. Still, caring for patients like 7-year-old Shirina, a Bangladeshi girl suffering from a cleft palate, made it worth the effort, according to Plong.

"Shirina was scared and excited about her surgery at the same time," says Plong. "Afterward, she immediately wanted a mirror to see her new face even though she was drugged and in pain. You could see in her eyes how happy she was."

In Sept. 2006, Plong began the second phase of her fellowship as a nursing coordinator in the pulmonary ward of the Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital (KSFH) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This assignment held a special place in Plong's heart — in the early 1980s, her family fled to the United States from a Cambodian refugee camp where Plong herself had been born. At the KSFH, Plong cared for patients afflicted with tuberculosis and HIV who were struggling within a corrupt medical system that forced poor patients to pay for their own medical supplies. She also created new procedures to help the hospital run more efficiently, and served as a role model for other nurses. "The nurses there are used to not having supplies, so they often wouldn't even try to find them," says Plong. "It was difficult to change the mentality that nursing isn't just a job, but a privilege."

Plong maintained a blog during her trip, available at chanda-durantfellowship.blogspot.com. For more information about the Durant Fellowship, visit www.durantfellowship.org.