February 23, 2024– When the Easter Bunny talks about cystic fibrosis, chances are, you’re going to listen, right?
Hope Appelbaum, Kettering College Respiratory Care associate professor and chair, created an interesting way for third-year students to deepen their learning about chronic diseases that affect the lungs. She gave the students the option to pick a famous character from a movie or popular culture, pretend that character is living with that particular disease, and present the details to the class as a first-person narrative.
This means getting specific about how the character’s hobbies, work, and well-being have been altered because of their diagnosis. The creative assignment produced a more relaxed environment for students to deliver important content in an innovative way that’s more engaging and fun.
When characters such as Dory from Finding Nemo or the wrestler Randy Macho Man Savage talk about what it’s like to have chronic bronchitis or congestive heart failure, the seriousness of the information isn’t lifted, but the delivery comes to life. An added benefit is it stretches students’ communication and creativity skills, both essential tools for a respiratory therapist.
This last semester of Kettering College’s Respiratory Care program focuses heavily on holistic health. We might first consider this to mean body, mind, and spirit, but Professor Appelbaum proposes holistic health should include learning about patients’ lives outside of an acute care setting to help see the whole picture. The goal was to understand how a person’s life might be affected by a chronic disease and to consider people as unique individuals before defining them by their disease.
The Respiratory Care students enjoyed the creative assignment that focused on putting the patient at the center of all care and considering all aspects of their lives. Within months, these students will be taking on careers in healthcare, and exercises such as this help them to consider how best to serve their patients.
The information was delivered in a fun, light-hearted way, but the importance of taking time to understand patients is what students will be taking away from this activity as they graduate from Kettering College and serve others as respiratory therapists.
(Photos Courtesy of Respiratory Care Department)
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