Over the course of two hours nursing students participated in a large-scale poverty simulation to learn about the challenges low-income families face in an effort to survive. The simulation was hosted by Barnes-Jewish College Goldfarb School of Nursing.
Susan Fliesher, DNP, CPNP, RN, assistant professor at Goldfarb, led the simulation where students had to take on the roles of members of up to 11 families, all facing a variety of challenging, but typical, circumstances. “Nursing students often have had limited experiences with those who are poor. This simulation enables students to walk in someone else’s shoes for a short time in order to get a sense of what that might be like,” said Fliesher. “In order to get better health outcomes, nurses need to understand the barriers that some of their patients may need to overcome. Understanding the realities of others who have limited resources enables nurses to be more realistic when providing education and guidance.”
The simulation families were given packets with resources such as cash, property, and transportation. Fifteen volunteers served as resource providers in the community including social services, police department, and community health care. Mary Matthews, BSN, RN, CCRN a Goldfarb instructor and an alum, Class of 2013, is also a regular volunteer at the poverty simulations. “While it’s impossible to give our students a real life experience we do our best to give them an approximation of the patients they could encounter through the poverty simulation.”
Goldfarb’s goal of the poverty simulation labs is to expose nursing students to different types of patients and appreciate the realities and choices individuals living in poverty face every day.
The college plans to host another poverty stimulation on February 26th.
