LOOKING Is Not SEEING and LISTENING Is Not HEARING:Effect of an Intervention to Enhance Auditory Skills of Graduate-Entry Nursing Students

Abstract

Inspection/observation and listening/auscultation are essential skills for health care providers. Given that observational and auditory skills take time to perfect, there is concern about accelerated students' ability to attain proficiency in a timely manner. This article describes the impact of music auditory training (MAT) for nursing students in an accelerated master's entry program on their competence in detecting heart, lung, and bowel sounds. During the first semester, a two-hour MAT session with focused attention on pitch, timbre, rhythm, and masking was held for the intervention group; a control group received traditional instruction only. Students in the music intervention group demonstrated significant improvement in hearing bowel, heart, and lung sounds (p < .0001). The ability to label normal and abnormal heart sounds doubled; interpretation of normal and abnormal lung sounds improved by 50 percent; and bowel sounds interpretation improved threefold, demonstrating the effect of an adult-oriented, creative, yet practical method for teaching auscultation.

Physical assessment techniques performed by Italian registered nurses: a quantitative survey

“…This assessment, which is one of the core competencies of nursing practice (ANA , McElhinney , Pellico et al . ), is fundamental both to gather information about patients' health status, and to evaluate the quality of nursing care (AACN , Munro , Wheeldon ).…”

Creativity and collaboration: Revisiting cybernetic serendipity

“…Perceptual training and skills of artists, musicians, dancers, and designers serve scientists and engineers well. Musically trained physicians not only hear more when using stethoscopes and chest percussion than nonmusicians, but make more accurate diagnoses (3,4). Similarly, visual arts training improves their ability to read X-rays and other radiological images and to perceive external symptoms of disease (5-7).…”

Medical education of attention: A qualitative study of learning to listen to sound

“…What is most important in respect to this finding in our material, however, is not so much whether we can conclude that music is beneficial to learning auscultation (see others such as Pellico et al 2012 who are researching this systematically), but rather that music training enhances the students' skills in attentiveness. An important and beneficial aspect of musical training was a training of the senses, a general education in sensory awareness that is also important in learning the sounds of the body.…”

“…The more training they had to listen to musical sounds, the better their skills in articulating body sounds were perceived to be. Pellico et al (2012) write that "clinical competence begins by developing and sharpening skills that use the senses: observing, palpating, hearing, and smelling" and that "given that the skill of physical examination is multisensory, curricula that enhance the skills of observing, touching, and hearing logically have potential for improved competency. Development of these skills is critical since they are the basis for initial assessment, physical examination, diagnosis of a patient's needs and evaluation of treatment impact."…”