'Hearing Voices': Nursing students train to treat patients with mental illnesses

In an effort to help future frontline healthcare workers develop empathy for patients with a mental illness, nursing students at the Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences in East Lampeter Township completed a special training on Nov. 17.

In the Hearing Voices simulation, students listen to a tape of sometimes-disturbing voices that mimic a common symptom of schizophrenia.

“It allows the students to try to accomplish tasks while they have voices going on, some of which are kind, some are not kind,” said Stacey Bennett-Fulner, a family nurse practitioner and instructor at the college. “When they are interviewing a patient or trying to assess a patient, they may feel a little frustration because they’re not being listened to, maybe to recognize from an empathic perspective that they’re responding to internal stimuli.”

Some students had a visceral reaction to the voices, which alternated between whispers, loud noises and sometimes explicit insults.