Joanne Spataro
Pisa University School of Medicine, Italy
Title: Teaching the CanMEDS Communicator Role through English for Nurses: an Italian pilot course
Biography
Biography: Joanne Spataro
Abstract
Despite wide agreement about the importance of effective communication in nursing education there is little evidence of patient-oriented communication courses in Nursing Master’s Degree programs in Italy. So, how do nurse practitioners learn to master effective communication skills? What is being done within the curriculum design for nursing students? From a pedagogical standpoint, international health communication research has helped increase health educators’ awareness, contributed to building national health policies, provided theoretically driven work, and created textbooks in nursing communication skills. Nevertheless, in Italy very little attention is given to the training of communication skills within the master degree nursing curriculum. This paper will therefore describe the outcomes of a pilot course in patient-oriented communication skills in accordance with the CanMEDS Communicator Role while teaching English for Nurses. It is the writers' belief that English for Nurses should be taught from the holistic perspective of the nursing profession and healthcare communication first and foremost, while reinforcing vocabulary acquisition, grammar and structure secondly.