BOXES of batteries, syringes full of silicone, and a large bag of donated hearing aids aren’t typical luggage items… unless you’re embarking on a two-week Audiology placement mission to Cambodia. Carrying a letter explaining the purpose of the unusual cargo, I landed in Phnom Penh just past midnight, August 29th alongside three other first-year Audiology students.

Our ultimate destination was the Children’s Surgical Centre (CSC), a small surgical hospital in the Cambodian capital which was established in 1998 by British-American surgeon Dr Jim Gollogly to treat landmine injuries following the devastation of the Pol Pot Regime. Since then, CSC has developed into a tertiary teaching hospital providing free and low-cost surgeries to economically disadvantaged patients of all ages.

The most recent addition to the hospital is the Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) department, operated by an exceptional all-female team of two ENT surgeons and three nurses. With a high prevalence of untreated ear infections turning into more sinister conditions, there is a high demand for middle ear surgeries. In 2016, staff and students from the University of Melbourne helped establish Audiology services within CSC. They set up a sound treated testing room and trained staff to provide hearing tests, allowing for the measurement of hearing loss caused by ear pathologies, and any improvement following treatment. We would become very familiar with the Audiology Room over the next couple of weeks, but we still had a free weekend in Phnom Penh to make use of before getting down to business.

This first weekend was a great opportunity to get to know not just the area, but the historical significance behind our visit. Accompanying us on these jam-packed two days were the parents and sister of one of my classmates (or “colleagues” as we’ve learnt to call each other), who’d accompanied us to Cambodia to reconnect with their heritage.

Based in a beautiful building inspired by Khmer temple architecture, the National Museum of Cambodia was a peaceful escape from the muggy weather as we marvelled at art and cultural artifacts from the Khmer Empire. Our next destination was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, set inside a former secondary school that became the notorious S-21 Prison during the Khmer Rouge regime. Haunting and sombre, the Genocide Museum provided important context behind our placement mission and Children’s Surgical Centre itself. During the war and genocide brought on by Pol Pot in the late 1970s, educated citizens and professionals were targeted for execution, devastating Cambodia’s medical system and making the nation reliant on foreign aid for many years to come. While CSC still hosts numerous foreign medical teams from around the world each year, such as ours, these teams now play a supporting role in training and upskilling the over 100 Cambodian medical professionals who now work and study at the hospital.

Filling the rest of the weekend with vibrant street markets, drinking fresh coconuts, and exploring the city, we spent Sunday evening having dinner with UniMelb Physiotherapy and Optometry students who would be joining us at CSC.

The sound of our alarms at 6:00am the next morning quickly reminded us we weren’t in Cambodia for a holiday. By 7:00am, we were in a remorque- what you’d get if you crossed a horse and cart with a motorbike- on the way to the hospital. This would become a very familiar routine that we grew to love, with the thought of catching a tram up Swanston Street to 9:00am lectures seeming like a distant memory.

The most amazing thing about placement at Children’s Surgical Centre was being able to see patients the entire way through their treatment. Beginning upstairs in the Ear, Nose, and Throat department, patients from near and far would tell the ENT surgeon what was ailing them. Although consults happened in Khmer, the notes were taken in English, allowing us to follow along from our prime position at the surgeon’s side.

Next, we’d all get to take a peek at what was happening in the patient’s ears, nose, and throat thanks to a nasoendoscope. After lunching on traditional Khmer food at the hospital’s canteen, we’d switch stations for the afternoon. In the Audiology Room, we’d often be testing the hearing of patients we’d seen in that morning’s consults, allowing us to keep putting together the pieces of each clinical puzzle.

At 8:00am each morning, all the hospital’s medical staff would bunch up on plastic chairs to watch Dr Jim - still passionately working in his eighties - outline the surgeries for the day. Patients would come in one by one and sit up the front while the orthopaedic surgeons debated the best way to mend their shattered leg or swollen foot while we waited patiently to see familiar faces from the Audiology Room. If we were lucky, we’d get the opportunity to scrub in and watch the ear surgeries that we’d only ever heard of in lecture slides, which was an incredible experience, not often seen by audiologists. Back in the Audiology Room, we would perform post-operative hearing tests and relished seeing the improvements in hearing first-hand.

Putting the donated hearing aids to use was another highlight from our time at CSC. The joy of children, teenagers, and adults alike upon regaining access to sound was something that transcended the language barrier. Dr Jim himself received a new pair of hearing aids. Much to everyone’s relief, his booming voice was pleasantly quieter at the next morning meeting. For the last hour of every day, the ENT team packed into the small conference room to watch the presentations we’d prepared on the latest hearing care research from back home as we traded snacks from our respective countries.

Despite being exhausted from our first week at the hospital, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to use the middle weekend for some more sightseeing. We endured a 6-hour bus ride to Siem Reap (a chance to catch up on some lectures) and a 4:00am wake-up to see Angkor Wat emerge from the darkness as the sun revealed itself from somewhere behind the blanket of clouds and slowly lit up the sky. We spent the day exploring three more temples, each one uniquely beautiful, and enjoying the local cuisine.

By the time our placement at Children’s Surgical Centre came to an end after two incredible weeks, we truly felt like part of the team. The day after we said our bittersweet goodbyes- full of both laughs and tears- to the staff we’d come to love, we boarded a plane at Techo International Airport, which had newly opened a few days prior. Less than 48 hours later, we were back at Uni with a newfound confidence to help us through the rest of our first year of Audiology.

All photos by author. Originally published in the Portree Post, December 2025.