APRIL 2022
I'm a part-time instructor in the Communication Department at the University of Colorado Denver. CU Denver has a 25-year relationship with International College Beijing to offer Economics and Communication programs in Beijing through ICB. The students earn their Bachelors degrees entirely in English, taught by CU Denver instructors (usually in person but a few are remote, especially now). I've been teaching health communication courses there the past two semesters.
Recently, Story Booth was featured as part of an international education initiative between the University of Colorado Denver and International College Beijing (ICB). At ICB, Chinese students earn their degrees entirely in English, taught by faculty from Western universities. Students in the Advanced Health Communication course, taught by lecturer Autumn Boyer, completed five practicum assignments in Fall 2021 to experience real-world applications of health communication practices, theories, and contexts.
The Patient Story Analysis assignment was the first major assignment of the semester and a unique opportunity to introduce the students to American patients’ experiences and perspectives. The patient storytellers successfully drew students’ attention to the first-hand health experiences of average people, albeit in health care contexts often quite different from that with which the Chinese students were familiar.
In their analyses, the students consistently expressed empathy for the patients, identified systemic shortcomings that hampered patients’ access to timely, affordable, and/or appropriate treatment, and advocated for improved social and medical treatment of people with various mental health conditions. The students recognized how stigma attached to particular diagnoses and how patients were deeply affected—positively or negatively—by the degree of respect they perceived from their providers. Finally, the students expressed how important the quality of patient-provider communication is in all health care experiences as well as to the emotional well-being of the patients and their caregivers.
Story Booth archives are a rich resource for a range of educational and research preparation purposes. Contact us at mystory@pitt.edu if you are interested in contributing a patient story or have ideas about how you can use these archives in your research.
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