To all you experienced nurses - Do you think learning Sign Language would be useful?

happy2learn said:

I have time over the next 1 1/2 - 2 years to take a few extra classes that I want. I am already going to take Spanish for Nursing, but what about sign language?

The girl I work with as a volunteer is majoring in interpreting for sign language. I never really thought I would need to know it, but sure enough, 2 people came in and used sign language. The only thing I could do is offer a pen and paper, but what if it were an emergency and they were signing like crazy?

She said if I took 3 courses in sign language, I would know the basics enough to understand the major points of what someone is saying. Obviously I couldn't engage in a conversation, but I could help out more in an emergency instead of running to get a pen and paper.

What do you think? Do you run across enough patients that are deaf to support the idea of taking some sign language classes?

I want to at some point and I had two patients who were deaf when I was an aide, but haven't since.

I guess it all depends on your floor and the prevalence of deaf people in your community. Apparently, in my area, not many deaf people get heart problems...

Interesting comments. Thank you everyone.

I am definitely taking the Spanish for Nursing class. No question about that.

I think I will wait a year before I decide on the ASL classes. That way I'll have over a year volunteer experience in the ED and Oncology floor and I should be able to better judge how large the deaf community is.

I obviously don't want to spend close to $900 on ASL classes if it won't be used, because I'll lose those skills.