BTS Interprofessional communication happens when health professionals communicate with each other, with patients and their families, and the community. This communication can build trusting, respectful relationships amongst patients, their families and health care providers.
One of several ways to make good interprofessional communication occur is listening and paying attention to verbal and non-verbal communication. Unfortunately, non-verbal communication is one of the barriers to make it happen, as we know it is important for caring the deaf patients. Deafness is characterized by variably decreased perception of sound, which makes it difficult to acquire oral language naturally. The deaf community uses sign language as their first communication method, which is one of the factors that generates a feeling of belonging to a culture. Poor communication with them not only decreases sense of belonging but also may influence diagnosis and treatment.
In accordance with SCOME’s fields of work, the expansion of educational and training opportunities for students to improve the quality of human resources in the face of changes on a local and global scale, it is clear that BTS 4.0, annual event in CIMSA FK Unpad, was established to train candidates of health care professionals in appropriate care for deaf patients.
Sunday, November 22 and Wednesday, November 25, SCOME CIMSA FK Unpad held Breaking The Silence 4.0! This activity began with a webinar on ethics of communication with patients and fellow health workers by Fedri Ruluwerdata, who is a lecturer at FK Unpad and a CIMSA alumni on Sunday. Then the activity continued on Wednesday, there was a second webinar session on problems in health services from the perspective of deaf friends and the importance of learning sign language, which was delivered by the chairman of PUSBISINDO, Ms. Laura Lesmana, and translated by Ms. Adhika as JBI. This webinar was followed by a facilitation session, where participants were divided into several rooms to learn basic sign language and anamnesis with teachers from PUSBISINDO. We also made basic sign language learning videos that you can check out at the following link: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CHz-HuLn7mG/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Hopefully with the holding of BTS, it can increase awareness of the importance of learning sign language, and produce prospective health workers who can be more optimal in providing health services for deaf friends.