Karen
Location: Southeast Asia
Hometown: Bend, Oregon
Commissioned: 2007
*Editor’s note: Due to global security concerns names and specific locations of some of CBF’s field personnel will not be publicized.
Karen serves as a community health developer in Southeast Asia, where she uses her nurse practitioner skills and training on a medical boat that travels a major river system. The boat, which is equipped with two exam rooms, a dental exam room and pharmacy, offers medical services that otherwise would not be accessible. The medical staff reaches an average of 70 patients a day—approximately 10,500 a year.
“People who live along the river are used to not having healthcare,” Karen said. “They habitually live with chronic and debilitating illness as just a normal part of life. I’ve been continually amazed at how many times I’ve asked a patient how long he or she has been sick or had a particular condition and they answer, ‘Oh, not long at all, it’s pretty new—maybe for 6 months or a year.’”