Story, Video and Photographs by Amanda Shell, UH Med Now
Students from the Hawaiʻi School for the Deaf and the Blind (HSDB) were transformed into medical students for an exciting morning in January at the University of Hawai’i John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM).
HSDB students learned how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), check reflexes, and read blood pressure. They even had the opportunity to practice their new clinical techniques on SimTiki “patients” in a simulated emergency situation.
Each student acted as both a patient and doctor in a clinical skills roleplaying activity held in the Center for Clinical Skills (CCS) exam rooms.
The activities ended with a tour of the JABSOM campus and a discussion with two guest speakers. Students gathered in the auditorium to chat with Deborah Gabe and Gavan Abe of Hoʻopono Services, a government organization that provides services to blind and visually impaired residents of Hawaiʻi.
Ms. Gabe is a Hoʻopono Braille instructor who is blind and worked formerly as an audiologist at Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children, one of JABSOM’s academic medicine training partners, and the headquarters of JABSOM’s Departments of Pediatrics and Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health. Mr. Abe is the Community Services Coordinator of Hoʻopono Services for the Blind.
BEHIND THE SCENES, BELOW: Paul McDonnell, a science and P.E teacher at HSDB, recounts his experience and shares the importance of practice!