meet the people > doctor profiles
Dr. Ngoun Chanpheaktra
Dr Ngoun Chanpheaktra was one of the first doctors to be hired at AHC and is today the hospital's Medical Director. He is particularly interested in paediatric nephrology and since 2001 has been collecting annual dengue fever statistics. Chanpheaktra is an official trainer on the WHO/ Ministry of Health IMCI course, which is designed to help basic health workers evaluate sick children. He is also very active in the training of AHC and government doctors and nurses. He is a graduate of Mahidol University in Bangkok with a diploma in Tropical Disease and Hygiene.Chanpheaktra is married and has two children.Support Dr Chanpheaktra or any of our other Cambodian doctors through our Adopt-A-Doctor program at www.fwab.org.
Dr. Sar Vuthy
Sar Vuthy is one of AHC’s senior Cambodian medical staff. He has worked at AHC from the very beginning. Vuthy was born in Kompong Cham Province and studied in Phnom Penh with the Faculty of Medicine. Afterwards he went on to study surgery and worked as a general surgeon in the Siem Reap Provincial Hospital until he heard about the creation of AHC. He says he likes to work at AHC as he can work as a surgeon in a high quality care hospital and have the chance to help and sometimes save many Cambodian children. His message to donors: "Because AHC is budget-limited condition we are not able to provide enough health care to the necessity of Cambodian Children, so I would like to appeal to all charity donors and international people to try and help us some more."
Dr Leakhena
Dr Leakhena, formerly chief pediatrician for the province of Siem Reap, has been at Angkor Hospital for Children since 1999. Living in the town of Siem Reap since 1991, she was already one of the most respected physicians in the province. When AHC opened, the hospital replaced her pediatric department at Siem Reap Provincial Hospital. Leakhena chose to come here as a junior doctor--with a significant decrease in earnings--rather than transfer to another department or enter into private practice, because she had devoted her professional life to pediatrics and saw an opportunity to substantially improve her knowledge in this field.
As well as supervising the daily work of the junior doctors on her team and providing on-the-job teaching, she manages the TB clinic, which currently sees 120 patients per month. In additional to her clinical and administrative duties, Dr Leakhena is a regular lecturer on AHC’s medical and nursing teaching programs to AHC, as well as its external programs for government doctors and nursing students. Her pet subjects include malnutrition, breastfeeding and care of the newborn.
She has recognized for a long time that Cambodia is seriously lacking in neonatal care and this knowledge drove her to win a scholarship to study neonatology, in 2004, at the National University Hospital in Singapore, one of Asia’s most prestigious institutions.
Dr Leakhena also serves on AHC’s Education Committee and, as of mid-2005, she has taken the position of AHC's Medical Education Coordinator.
Dr Ngeth Pises
Doctor Pises is one of AHC’s senior Cambodian medical staff. He counts himself as lucky as, after the Khmer Rouge, both his parents and his six brothers and sisters are still alive.Pises enjoys working at AHC because he loves working with children; he greatly appreciates the work environment as he has many opportunities to exchange ideas with expatriate doctors. He is happy that AHC offers post-graduate training and works to assist other Cambodian hospitals.In the future Pises would like to specialize in cardiology. In order to achieve his goal he wishes to study more and to find an opportunity to study overseas.His message to donors: “Nowadays we have a lot of sick patients. We already try to cut down the number of the patients but we can not do more. So we need more money to extend beds and increase salaries for medical staff who work very hard. We want you to continue to sponsor as long as possible.”
Dr Luy Lyda
Dr Luy Lyda has worked at AHC since September 1999. Originally from Siem Reap, Lyda was raised by his mother after his father, a college mathematics professor, and four older brothers were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Lyda applied for a job at AHC because he wanted to work with children. He has developed great clinical skill in the diagnosis of cardiac disease and is able to assist his friend and colleague, Dr Pises,in the management of over 400 children with congenital and rheumatic heart disease. In addition, Lyda is AHC’s paediatric radiologist. He is extremely skilled in ultrasound scanning, including echocardiography, and has significant expertise in the interpretation of x-rays – a combination of tasks that is often divided between a team of doctors in developed countries. He was awarded a clinical fellowship at the National University Singapore to study radiology for 6 months in 2004.
Dr. Soeung Seitboth
Dr Soeung Seitaboth, head of AHC's HIV team, has worked at the hospital
since 1999. Seitaboth’s original aim in coming to work at AHC was to
gain experience in paediatrics. During his time here, he was struck
by the ever-increasing number of HIV-positive children coming to the
hospital. The nature of this condition is that there are often social
problems stemming from parental illness or death, compounding their
barriers to care. Seitaboth became aware of the discrimination they
faced within their communities, and even sometimes from health care
professionals, and was compelled to work with these children-a feeling
that continues to grow stronger each day. When he took responsibility
for all HIV patients, in September 2002, there were no antiretroviral
drugs available. This changed in June 2003, courtesy of Medicins Sans
Frontiers, and Seitaboth received training in the use of this medication.
In 2003, Seitaboth won a scholarship to the Fogarty AIDS Training and
Research Program at Brown University, USA. In four short months, he
designed a study to investigate malnutrition in HIV-positive children,
the first of its kind in Cambodia. This study has been carried out since
2004 and is promoting a greater understanding of this complex medical
problem while enabling us to develop more effective nutritional management
for this group of patients.
Dr.
Kheng Chheng
Dr. Chheng graduated from medical school from the University of Health
Sciences in Phnom Penh in 2004 and began his career with Angkor Hospital
for Children in the Inpatient Department after completing his studies.
He has since become an integral part of the medical team at AHC and
now serves as Chief of the Inpatient Department, overseeing the 50-bed
unit. In 2007 Dr. Chheng earned an instructors' certification for Advanced
Pediatric Life Support and became involved in the continuing education
for nurses and medical staff for provincial hospitals. While Dr. Chheng
is impressed with the level commitment from the staff at AHC, he would
like to be able to see additional staff physicians brought on board
to assist with the heavy case load, as well as additional ventilators
for the Intensive Care Unit.
Dr.
Khov Phara
Dr. Phara received his medical education in Vietnam. After graduation
he had post doctoral training in ophthalmology from 2002-2006. Dr. Phara
began working at AHC in 2006 as the hospital's Pediatric Ophthalmologist.
He participates in the regular rotation of pediatric work in the outpatient
department, but focuses on eye patients and runs the Eye Clinic at AHC.
He is able to do small procedures in the Minor Procedure room at the
hospital, as well as some surgery in the Operating Room. He has recently
been selected for further training with the Flying Eye Hospital in Phnom
Penh, where he will have the opportunity to learn new methods of eye
care, gain further knowledge and refine his training. In addition, Dr.
Phara has on-going communication with Brown University in the USA and
with SEVA in Nepal. He enjoys the working environment at AHC with opportunities
for relationships with foreign volunteers. He would very much like to
have new equipment for cataract surgery.
Dr. Sing Heng
Dr Sing Heng joined AHC in July 2001. Originally from Phnom Penh, he moved to Siem Reap because he wanted to work as a paediatrician and knew that Angkor Hospital was a paediatric training hospital. For Heng, the best things about working in AHC are the education program and the extremely busy shifts in the in-patient, out-patient and emergency departments, which have helped him gain invaluable experience and confidence. Cambodia also suffers a huge burden of disease from genetic disorders of haemoglobin such as thalassaemia-something yet to be realised among the medical community post-Khmer Rouge. Heng has begun to study haematology in depth in an effort to redress this shortfall. The care of these patients includes genetic counselling for their parents to help them understand the risk of future pregnancies being affected by the same condition. The challenge for Heng is to develop such counselling for the first time for this patient population, who are mainly rural poor with little or no literacy, and no concept of genes or chromosomes. To help him, he recently attended the first Asian Workshop in Community Genetics and Genomics which was aimed at exactly this problem in similar communities throughout Asian developing countries. He has conducted a G6PD deficiency prevalence study of AHC outpatients. This condition is often latent until exposure to certain medications initiates life-threatening destruction of the body’s red cells. Clinical experience at AHC leads us to suspect that this disease is common and so this study will serve to inform the Cambodian medical community of the magnitude of the problem and enable recommendations to be made regarding widespread screening of schoolchildren and newborns.
Dr. Yos Pagnarith
Dr. Pagnarith comes from Battambang Province where his father is the Director of the Regional Nursing School. He chose to work at AHC because it was the place where he could learn to be an outstanding pediatrician, and share his own ideas. Dr. Pagnarith is Chief of the Emergency Room/Intensive Care Unit.
Dr. Varun Kumar
Dr. Kumar was born and raised in the U.S.A. He attended Washington University of Medicine in St. Louis and fulfilled his pediatric residency at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He has served as a senior pediatrician at Angkor Hospital for Children since November 2005. His goal is to make himself obsolete.
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