“The Academic Elders Volunteer Program provided an opportunity for student nurses to observe different scenarios with elder actors. In our future career as nurses, interaction with the aging population will be commonplace. We focused on many scenarios involving home care and hospital care. The volunteers enjoyed the fact that they were helping us to learn to communicate with patients. You could see them brighten up when they noticed us improving on our communication skills.”
Academic Elders Volunteer Program
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This past Fall, Saint Joseph’s Institute for Integrative Aging launched the Academic Elders Volunteer Program. There are a number of known benefits for those who volunteer, including a greater sense of purpose, improved mental and physical health, and increased wellbeing. In addition, the program supports our students’ academic and social growth through positive, intergenerational collaboration, providing experiences that bridge the generation gap.
This semester, we had four Academic Elder volunteers who virtually joined Professor Bonard’s Nursing Fundamentals Course (NU215) for four consecutive weeks, acting as ‘standardized patients’. This opportunity allowed our nursing students to practice their clinical assessment skills along with general communication and interviewing techniques in a simulated environment. At the conclusion of the four-week period, both volunteers and faculty noted that there was improvement in students’ verbal and non-verbal therapeutic communication, fostering a positive and effective nurse-client relationship.
