Rebecca Smith Cambodia

I’ve just returned from what can only be described as a life-changing experience, and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone! Here’s what happened over two incredible weeks in Cambodia:

Week one took us to Siem Reap prison where we treated the inmates. I appreciate that sounds scary, but the reality could not be further from the truth. This was the prisoners’ first access to dentistry since a previous Dentaid trip in 2023. Over five intense days, we saw 303 patients, extracted 338 teeth, completed 140 fillings and carried out numerous scales.

A Cambodian dentist would complete the initial triage for the patients and create a treatment plan. Then when our dentists were free, I would collect the patient, the plan and all the instruments needed, often prepared by Nary, the amazing Cambodian dental nurse.

As one of two nurses on the trip, it was a very busy time for me nursing for two or three dentists at a time, but we worked alongside One-2-One Cambodia another dental charity who had dental student volunteers too – the students were absolute life-savers providing excellent translation services as well as stepping in to nurse for our clinicians.

Despite the challenging clinical workload, the prison was very calm and enjoyable, and all the prisoners were so polite and grateful — it was a truly humbling experience.

Next, we travelled four hours to Kampong Thom province to visit four schools in four days. Despite it being half-term, every child came in for treatment. It was a very busy few days, but helping children out of pain and seeing them smile when they saw us was the most rewarding experience ever.

The set up was very basic with up to 10 clinicians working in a small classroom, with the children laying on their desks, a small shared clean table for the team and a basic decontamination area. The clinics were hard work with a continuous flow of children arriving at the desk, often before you had finished with the patient before!

As hard as our trip was though, it wasn’t all work and no play! I am so grateful to have seen and done so much over the few days off we had (self-funded of course). We saw the Apopo Hero Rats (trained to sniff out land mines and save lives), visited the elephant sanctuary to feed and bathe the beautiful elephants, saw Angkor Wat at sunrise, visited the Kulen mountains and swam in the waterfall, went to the circus, night market and pub street! The trip was absolutely non-stop but I figured I’d sleep when I’m home. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to experience everything I possibly could!

Across the two weeks, our team treated 1,304 patients, extracted 681 teeth and completed 357 fillings, 142 fissure sealants, 107 scales, 181 SDF applications and 722 flouride applications. These numbers represent real people whose lives were changed — and that’s something I’ll never forget.

Helping all those people was a life-changing experience, that I already cannot wait to do again. The Cambodians are such welcoming and friendly people, and it has been wonderful to see their country. We saw parts of the country that has very few foreign visitors, and the locals welcomed us into their homes and shared meals with us. So, it has been amazing to see something so many people haven’t and for that I am truly grateful.

I loved our team, who worked so hard, in such challenging conditions to take care of these wonderful people and I could not be prouder to be a part of it! This trip pushed everyone to their limits — physically and emotionally — but the sense of teamwork and purpose was extraordinary. Helping so many people in such challenging conditions was humbling and inspiring.

I would also like to thank Gail and Jude our tireless team leaders who took such good care of us. Not only did they organise a brilliant trip, but they made sure we got to experience the real culture of Cambodia. And they did all this with unwavering compassion for all of us; offering support when the clinics were hard, looking after us when we didn’t feel our best and giving us a big hug when we were missing home or needing a little pick me up.

I strongly urge anyone who has an opportunity to do anything like this to go for it, you 100% won’t regret it!