Interested in taking your clinical education role-playing to the next level? Partner with your theater department!
That’s what Moravian’s Department of Rehabilitation Sciences has successfully done. Since 2019, they’ve collaborated with the Muhlenberg College’s Theater Program on a clinical simulation program that allows their students to practice hands-on, realistic clinical encounters with the theater students playing the role of standardized patients.
Upon completion of the interaction, theater students use an adapted debriefing tool (Master Interview Rating Scale-MIRS) to provide feedback to the PT, OT, or SLP students on their professional behaviors. The rehabilitation science students also provide feedback to the theater students on their portrayal of the case.
By receiving an ACAPT award, Moravian will be able to incorporate a formal end of semester debriefing and associated reflective assignments for all students involved and facilitate guided discussions about their overall lived experience of the patient encounters.
This model can be a template for other health profession educational programs working toward integration of the humanities into their student experience. Moravian plans to disseminate their full approach to the educational community through ACAPT so other rehabilitation science and physical therapy programs can benefit.
Program Director/Associate Professor Mary Anne Riopel, PT, DPT, PhD at Moravian University won an ACAPT $1,000 award for her project: Embedding the humanities in an interdisciplinary approach to clinical simulation - an expansion of a joint collaboration between Moravian University and Muhlenberg College.
The following Moravian faculty are also involved in the project:
- Jennifer Landis, MEd
- Louise Keegan, PhD, CCC-SLP
- Ann Marie Potter, PhD, OTR/L
ACAPT and International Society for Progression in Rehabilitation & Education (InSPIRE) SWADES are proud sponsors of this award. The ACAPT Consortium for Humanities, Ethics & Professionalism (CHEP) created the award to support novel research, education or practice opportunities that aim to foster the integration of the humanities, ethics and/or professionalism into physical therapist education.
InSPIRE SWADES was formed to address a need for cohesive action on the part of rehabilitation professionals (academic and clinical) and other health care scientists, as well as students, residents and fellows of rehab professions and healthcare science, of Indian Origin, residing in the United States of America. The InSPIRE Swades Inc. was also formed to maintain the identity of this group of people, to provide a forum for charitable, educational, cultural, and scientific interaction among its members.