On May 14th, at the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (WIDHH), 16 students from across disciplines (nursing, dentistry, dental hygiene, medicine, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, audiology and speech-language pathology) attended the first introductory workshop on providing better care for the deaf and hard of hearing.
The workshop began with an ‘unfair hearing test’ lead by Grace Shyng, Executive Director of WIDHH. The test simulated a high frequency hearing loss and gave students a taste of the daily struggles of hard of hearing people.
The students also heard from three deaf or hard of hearing panel speakers, all with very different experiences with hearing loss. A total of six deaf and hard of hearing mentors attended the workshop to help students develop communication skills for their future practices.
One of the School’s second year Audiology students, who attended the workshop, said: “I learned how to directly address the best way to communicate with patients belonging to the deaf and HOH community in a clinical setting.”
Read the full story in Issue 51 (May 2018) of the Community Voices in Health Professional Education at UBC newsletter.