Categories
Sexual Assault

Forensic Nurses in Swaziland

Two of IAFN’s members (including Board Secretary Kim Nash) are heading to Swaziland to work with local clinicians caring for pediatric sexual assault patients. It’s an amazing opportunity and I am excited to hear about their travels and what they learn while they’re there. And lucky us, they’ve decided to blog about their experiences, so now we can follow along.

Categories
Elder Abuse/Neglect

Medical Aspects of Elder Abuse

I’m such a big fan of science–but of course, you know this. I will always post resources and tools that are grounded in solid science. That is, science that’s been shown to be valid and reliable. Science I cite when I teach and when I testify.

Categories
Child Abuse DV/IPV

Drug Endangered Children (Redux)

A reader asked me if I had anything on drug endangered children that could be used for staff training. As it so happens, I do: the National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children (whose healthcare protocols I’ve mentioned before here) has many archived webinars on this topic that are geared toward both law enforcement and medical audiences:

Categories
Uncategorized

Emergency Contraception Toolkit

I feel like a bit of a broken record, but there’s yet another available resource on EC. This comes from K4Health (which is a USAID site) and it’s a pretty comprehensive (and globally-minded) toolkit. Certainly worth checking out.

Categories
DV/IPV Sexual Assault

Since Last We Spoke, 8-27-12

Did anyone talk about anything else besides Rep. Akin’s ludicrous and offensive sexual assault comments last week?  I suppose we did, but it certainly dominated a lot of the conversation (hopefully you had the opportunity to read IAFN”s statement). Fortunately, there has been other stuff in the news since last we spoke:

Categories
Sexual Assault

IAFN Statement on False Claims About Pregnancy and Sexual Assault

IAFN has released a statement in response to Rep. Akin’s claims about pregnancy and sexual assault. Read it in its entirety here (PDF).

Categories
DV/IPV Sexual Assault

Mental Health & Domestic & Sexual Violence

The Vera Institute’s Accessing Safety Initiative has an upcoming webinar, Mental Health and Domestic and Sexual Violence. The session will be held Tuesday, September 11th at 3pm ET. You can register here. Sadly, I have no further information on this one, so if anyone has more details, please add them in the Comments.

Categories
Uncategorized

New EC Fact Sheet from WHO

The World Health Organization has a new fact sheet on emergency contraception available on their site. It covers both pills and IUDs.

Categories
Sexual Assault

Sadly, I am not at #NSAC2012

The National Sexual Assault Conference is in Chicago this week and I am not there. Bummer. Many of my favorite people on the planet are there, and I guarantee some great conversations will be taking place. If like me, you wish you were attending, but aren’t, you can follow much of the goings-on via twitter by searching #NSAC2012 (UPDATE: #NSAC and #NSAC_2012 also being used). For those of you (and I’m talking to a huge number of forensic nurses now) who don’t yet use twitter, I will just say again that it’s more than just getting status updates. Our colleagues will be posting links to some fantastic tools and resources, which makes it worth your time to occasionally hop on and peruse.

Categories
Sexual Assault

Online Learning: Sexually Transmitted Infections

The California HIV/STD Prevention Training Center has several online offerings that would be useful–particularly for new clinicians who need to shore up on basics, including the CDC Guidelines. There are online courses, archived webinars and podcasts to choose from, so it’s worth checking out the site. Take note–one of them is a video (15 minutes long) on the new gonorrhea treatment issues. Perfect for a staff meeting CE update.

Categories
Uncategorized

New Canada Posts

We have several new things posted in the Canada section for you to check out. Also, FHO has amassed a fair number of Australian readers–outside North America, it’s where I’m most likely to see new subscribers. If there are any Australians who would like to a.) see an Australia-specific section; and b.) want to be responsible for sending me materials to keep that section updated I would be happy to add it.

Categories
Sexual Assault

Emergency Contraception by State and Position Statements by Organization

All this “legitimate rape” conversation has me thinking about access to emergency contraception. I try to make sure we have pretty healthy coverage of the topic here at FHO, since so many of our patients choose to use it post-sexual assault. But in case you’re looking for a national overview on availability, please see the Guttmacher Institute’s State Policies in Brief: Emergency Contraception (PDF). It’s current as of the beginning of this month. And for those of you who’ve never read your own professional organization’s position on access to EC for sexual assault patients, I encourage you to seek it out and review it. You should know what it says (and if your organization doesn’t have one, maybe it’s time to get one written). You can find IAFN’s here (PDF); ACOG’s here; ACEP’s here; and AMA’s here (PDF). If I have left some out, please add them in the Comments.

Categories
Sexual Assault

Since Last We Spoke AND Spot the Myths: Campaign Edition

I’m double-dipping on this one, but let’s face it–it’s pretty much all I’ve been reading about since last we spoke and it’s a whopper of a topic for a Spot the Myths segment here at FHO. If you’ve turned on a television in the US or picked up a newspaper or looked at your Facebook page or twitter, etc., you’ve probably caught this story. Rep. Todd Akin, a Republican candidate for the US Senate in Missouri had a few things to say about “legitimate rape”, and not surprisingly, it’s led to some “legitimate political action“, at least in my house.

Categories
Sexual Assault

Human Trafficking/Sexual Exploitation

For those of you looking for more information on human trafficking and sexual exploitation, a few items of note:
OJJDP is hosting a webinar on August 22nd: Promising Practices in Combating the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls in Gangs. The session will be held from 2-3pm ET.
OVC has a web forum (on the same day and time as the one above): Implementing the Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force Model. Remember that this is a real-time Q&A session, but it is archived, so you can participate in both if you like.
One other thing: TED has quite a few talks on trafficking and sexual exploitation, by some fascinating speakers. If video is your preferred method for education, this is a good place to look for diverse coverage on this subject.

Categories
Sexual Assault

Multidisciplinary Strategies for Forensic Compliance

The Sexual Violence Justice Institute is hosting a webinar on Auguts 27th from 12-1:30 CDT: Multidisciplinary Strategies for Forensic Compliance. The session is limited to 200 so if you’re interested, register ASAP.

Categories
Uncategorized

Mental Health Sequelae of Extreme Violence

Harvard Medical School has an online CME course available: Mental Health Sequelae of Extreme Violence. Physicians will earn 2 AMA PRA Category 1 CMEs, but others can earn a certificate of participation. See the website for complete details.

(BTW, there’s also one on the ABCs of Disaster Medicine— a bit more $, but it looks like a great course.)

Categories
Sexual Assault

Building Blocks of Prevention

There’s still a lot of confusion about how forensic healthcare professionals can get involved in prevention efforts (we wrote this back in 2006, but I think it’s still relevant). PreventConnect has a new elearning site that includes an introductory session called Building Blocks of Prevention. By the looks of the course outline, this would be a great way to become better acquainted with prevention and help you identify just how prevention fits into your own professional outlook.

Categories
DV/IPV Sexual Assault

Since Last We Spoke 8-13-12

First off, please let me just say thank you to everyone who commented, emailed and sent cards in response to the news about my mother. The sheer volume of communications I received makes it impossible to thank each one of you individually, so please accept this more expedient (but no less grateful) thanks and know that I am truly moved at how many readers reached out to me.

I’ve been away for what feels like an eternity, so there’s a lot to talk about since last we spoke (including a free full-text journal supplement on youth violence):

Categories
Sexual Assault

Update to CDC’s STI Guidelines

This felt too critical to wait on: please make sure you review the CDC’s new update to the STI Treatment Guidelines of 2010, specifically on the treatment of gonorrhea. The long and the short of it? Due to resistance issues, we can all stop prescribing/providing oral cephalosporins. It’s back to ceftriaxone IM (if you hadn’t already gone there).

Read the full article here.

Categories
Uncategorized

FHO Will be Dark This Week

As some of you know, my mother died on Friday. FHO will be dark this week (as will my Twitter stream) so that I am able to spend a little extra time with my people. For those of you who have talked with me about lit reviews and other materials, thanks for your patience. I’ll be back in full swing next week.