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Elsevier
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Shadow Health

Digital Standardized Patients: Lupe Sosa

Nursing students will learn about caring for gender non-binary patients and building communication skills.

Lupe Sosa

Meet Lupe Sosa

Lupe Sosa, 21, is a college student who balances a full academic schedule as a philosophy and music double major, along with a work/study job at the library, DJ gigs in local nightclubs, club fencing, and vibrant relationships with their friends and family.

Gender non-binary patients

Lupe is gender non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. Non-binary people do not identify with the binary gender identities of man or woman. Students help Lupe consider the possible cause of their sleep disturbances.

Lupe’s simulation includes a Rapport Building activity where students practice invaluable communication skills. This includes students introducing themselves with their pronouns and establishing how Lupe would like to be referred to. Examples of microaggressions against non-binary patients that could appear in the healthcare setting, including misgendering or refusing to use a patient’s name, are addressed in the Rapport Building activity (National LGBTQ Health Education Center).

While these are small steps towards building rapport with patients from vulnerable populations, they have the potential to make a big impact on building rapport with a population that experiences high levels of discrimination and microaggression in healthcare settings.

Simulation in Shadow Health