Abstract

To help reduce healthcare inequalities, nursing and healthcare curriculums need to include cultural awareness and language learning to meet the demands of a growing diverse population. The purpose of this study was to explore an interdisciplinary collaboration between nursing and Spanish for Professionals (SFP) students through virtual and traditional high-fidelity simulations. The focus of this study was for students to assess the importance of having cultural awareness and language learning skills to care for diverse populations and to highlight bilingual collaborative learning activities within nursing and health education to close the inequalities gap. A retrospective qualitative description design was used to analyze students’ perceptions of bilingual simulation experiences between baccalaureate nursing students and SFP students, both virtual and in-person. The nursing students were in their first medical-surgical nursing course. The SFP students were in a certificate program. The simulations were designed as low-stakes bilingual learning activities for students from both programs. Through qualitative description, two major patterns, namely Students’ Perception, and Technology/Training Experiences were identified along with associated themes. The students benefitted from cultural and language-learning integration. Seventy-five percent of the participants in the traditional simulation and sixty percent in the virtual one reported that they were intellectually challenged by the experience.