Research as a visiting doctor in Afghanistan and Cambodia

This paper describes research I conducted into health care and its difficulties while working as a visiting doctor in two developing countries. The research was conducted in the Departments of Medicine, University Hospital, Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in 1994 and 1995, and Calmette Hospital, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 1997 and 1998. In Afghanistan I did an observational study of medical practice and case studies at the Department of Medicine, and a survey of drugs sold in pharmacies in Jalalabad. In Cambodia I surveyed hemoglobin concentrations of medical patients, and did an observational study of medical practice and case studies at Calmette Hospital. I surveyed the body weight of medical patients in relation to drug doses, and used a questionnaire to survey prescribing practices of physicians. Each project was conducted by me alone and was completed within 1-3 months. The support by the hospital was good and there where no ethics committees that had to approve the projects. Only verbal consent from the patients had to be obtained and no national laws or regulations affected the research. Small clinical research projects in developing countries are relatively easy to perform, if conducted by one researcher working in a hospital and not relying on special equipment such as a computer.