Health care sensitivity learned firsthand

Imagine lying on a hospital bed alone and isolated, with no idea when the nurse is coming back.

The next generation of health care workers are striving to understand such a scenario and make sure it doesn't happen in the future.

During a summer camp at Yuma Regional Medical Center last week, 20 students received sensitivity training to help prepare them for a career in health care.

The students took part in various exercises designed to give them the perspective of someone with a disability.

In one exercise, students lay on a hospital bed while a proctor placed a bedpan under them, simulating a patient's experience in that situation.

Then the curtain was shut and the student was left alone - not for very long, but for the students the isolation likely felt like a long time. Students stressed that it wasn't a pleasant experience.

"It's a weird feeling," said Lolve Perez, a recent Cibola High graduate who plans to attend Arizona Western College to become a nurse.

Perez said she understood how a patient could be scared in that situation.

Proctor Laurie Priebe said the exercises helped students imagine how a patient could feel in various scenarios.

"If you've never been a patient, you forget what that patient is feeling like, waiting for that nurse to come back," said Priebe, a registered nurse and educator with 20 years' experience at YRMC.

She said that exercises helped students work with the patient and help them feel like they're not alone.

In another exercise, students wore safety goggles with bubble wrap to simulate a vision impairment. The students were asked to perform various tasks, including picking out a particular object.

But with the goggles, those tasks proved to be difficult.

"It's hard. You have to get really close to them," said Margeaux Miller, an upcoming sophomore at Yuma Catholic.

For Elizabeth Sedilla, an upcoming senior at Cibola High, if the proctor didn't tell her, she said she couldn't have guessed the object.

"It's really hard," Sedilla said. "I take things for granted."

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TIPS ON BEING COURTEOUS

• Offer help to someone with a disability, but wait until it is accepted before giving it. Offering assistance to someone is only polite behavior. Giving help before it is accepted is rude. It can sometimes be unsafe, as when a person grabs the arm of someone using a crutch and the person loses his balance.
 
 • Talk directly to a disabled person, not to someone accompanying him or her. It is always rude for two people to discuss a third person who is also present.

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NO-NO WORDS:

• Afflicted - This has a negative connotation and suggests hopelessness.

 • Unfortunate - This implies that a physical disability is a result of bad luck or misfortune.

 • Victim - Do not use phrases like "victim of polio." People with disabilities do not want to be considered helpless victims.


Source: The Barrier Awareness Project of the Regional Rehabilitation Research Institute on Attitudinal, Legal and Leisure Barriers

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Stephanie A. Wilken can be reached at swilken@yumasun.com or 539-6857.