1.) Demonstrate simulation education that provides training for nursing students and American Sign Language interpreting students in a safe, effective, and compassionate environment to better develop their clinical skills.
2.) Exhibit how to bridge the communication barrier between English and American Sign Language with interpreting students and nursing students in an interprofessional simulation.
3.) Explain the incorporation of inter-professional education in pre-licensure curricula for student nurses and interpreting students through simulation.
Interdisciplinary learning and collaboration are necessary to continue to improve the quality of health professions and signed language interpreter education in the post-secondary setting. Incorporation of interprofessional education in pre-licensure curricula is advocated in nursing education by The National League for Nursing and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and is equally valued in the interpreter education field. This simulation project unites the Brooks College of Health (BCH), School of Nursing and the College of Education and Human Services (COEHS), ASL/English Interpreting Program in strengthening our preparation of students to work as members of healthcare teams in which the patients or family members are deaf and use American Sign Language as their native language. Our goal is to improve healthcare services to deaf children and families in north Florida and fill training gaps for nurses and interpreters. Given the deaf population’s density in north Florida and the proximity of the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind (St. Augustine) to UNF, this collaborative model is uniquely-situated and innovative in its plan to enhance the competency of UNF students to work in family-centered healthcare settings that create complex communication, role, ethical, and qualification demands on nurses and interpreters. This project seeks to combine the two colleges teaching efforts to (1) improve the quality of health professions education and (2) prepare interpreters and nurses to function as members of the healthcare team when deaf patients and family members are involved. Interdisciplinary learning and collaboration in the specialty area of healthcare has been a focus of the ASL/English Interpreting program and the School of Nursing since fall 2014, when the School of Nursing began arranging joint simulation training on campus and at a local hospital in response to requests from the interpreting program faculty. A recent example of joint simulation training was when nursing and interpreting students worked in the St. Vincent’s Medical Center Operating Room with deaf actors as ‘patients’ in pre-op, conscious-sedation surgery, and post-op. This joint venture has proven to be very successful for both programs and provides a much-needed exposure to both professionals in training.