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My (conflicted) love letter to 2009…

2009 has been a challenging year, filled with some incredible highs, and some pretty low lows. So as we finish up this year, here’s a look back at the good, the bad, and the ugly. (I’d love to hear what topped your lists in 2009, so feel free to let us know in the comments section, or as so many of you like to do, shoot me a note via the Contact form above.)

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DV/IPV

Partner Stalking

JWI’s National Alliance to End Domestic Violence is hosting a webinar January 7th on partner stalking, from 12-1 pm ET. Cost to attend is $25 for non-members (free for members). TK Logan and Teri Feragher will be the featured speakers.

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We Have a Winner…

Congratulations Fran Malinoff! You are the winner of the Child Abuse Quick Reference, 2nd Edition.

I will send you an email to arrange delivery of your book. Thanks to everyone who entered. Stay tuned for our next giveaway come mid-January.

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Child Abuse Sexual Assault

Conditions that Mimic Sex Abuse Findings

Welcome back. Hope your holiday was a good one (and your up-coming week a short one). Over at Medscape they have a piece on conditions that mimic child sexual abuse findings. It’s a reprint of Horner’s article originally published this fall in the Journal of Pediatric Health Care.

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Happy Holidays from FHO

[Don’t forget, you have until Wednesday, December 23rd at noon ET to be eligible for a copy of the Child Abuse Quick Reference, 2nd Edition. Just answer the question here to enter your name into the random drawing.]

[Courtesy of annamatic3000]

This will be the last post of the week, as we prepare for my dad to have surgery tomorrow and of course the holidays after that (like many of you out there, I will be taking call Xmas eve/day). However, in the spirit of the season, I wanted to share a little something that came in the mail yesterday that had me smiling.

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The Essential Role of Death Certificates in Public Health

[Don’t forget, you have until Wednesday, December 23rd at noon ET to be eligible for a copy of the Child Abuse Quick Reference, 2nd Edition. Just answer the question here to enter your name into the random drawing.]

Over at ReachMD, they have an interesting podcast I haven’t heard discussed elsewhere: The Essential Role of Death Certificates in Public Health.

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Sexual Assault

Weekly Wrap-Up @ the Sustainability Blog + a Few Odds & Ends

[Don’t forget, you have until Wednesday, December 23rd at noon ET to be eligible for a copy of the Child Abuse Quick Reference, 2nd Edition. Just answer the question here to enter your name into the random drawing.]

This week, over at the sustainability site, some good stuff for your perusal:

Something else I’d like to pass along is this article from the Psychiatric Times sent to me by one of my partners: The Medical Decision Making Capacity of Patients with Dementia. A lot here on consent issues and definitely worth a read.

Don’t forget to check out the Canada page–Sheila has provided a few new resources, including the Canadian Criminal Code with applicable sections for forensic clinicians highlighted.

And finally, on a personal note, this has been a challenging week for my family as we face unexpected illness. Next week, posts may be sporadic as my father has surgery and then begins his long recovery. If you are the praying kind, please add an extra one for us. However, we are a family that also understands that laughter may be as healing as prayer, so in that spirit, I leave you with a link that I hope you will find as funny as I do (with thanks to Judy for finding it first). Clearly I am going to have to adopt some new terminology in my lectures…

Enjoy your weekend.

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Our Next Giveaway!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

Time once again for a giveaway, sponsored by GW Medical Publishing. This month we’re giving away a copy of the new Child Abuse Quick Reference, 2nd Edition.  As with our last giveaway (which more than 100 of you participated in, so thank you), eligibility will be based on answering a question in the comments section of this post. You have until noon ET on Wednesday, December 23rd to enter.

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Sexual Assault

Spot the Rape Myths

Welcome to a new feature here at FHO called “Spot the ____ Myth”. Today, we’ll focus on sexual assault. See how many rape myths you count in this news story on the sexual assault of a middle school student in California:

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Sexual Assault

Briefing on Human Trafficking

On Monday, Sen. Wyden (D-OR) held a briefing on Monday on the impact of human trafficking. Among those who briefed were Rachel Lloyd (GEMS), Brad Myles (Polaris Project) and Sgt. Byron Fassett (Dallas PD’s High Risk Victims and Trafficking Squad).

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Renaming the Hymen

Let’s just go ahead and put this in the where in the world did you come across this one? category. The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) has decided it would be a good idea to rename the hymen in order to, um, bust the myths that surround it…(sorry.)

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The Choking Game

ABC News is running an article on their site about the choking game, which is a popular search term on this site. The article doesn’t break any new ground, but it does a decent job of providing an overview to the lay public. What I liked about the article, though, was the mention of an upcoming study being published in the journal Pediatrics.

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Sexual Assault

Weekly Wrap-Up @ the Sustainability Blog

I wanted to point you toward a couple interesting items over at the sustainability site this week:

I’ve also posted another document on the Canada page that non-Canadian readers may also want to peruse: research on sexual assault and unconsciousness.

Next week (and for the better part of the rest of the month), we will be looking back at some of the best offerings from 2009 here at FHO, and maybe kick in a new clinical guide for good measure. Don’t forget about the excellent webinar being hosted by SAFE TA next week on timing considerations for sexual assault exams (12/15). Thursday or Friday we will also unveil our next giveaway, sponsored by our good friends at G.W. Medical Publishing.

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, so for all of you celebrating, may your table sag under the weight of latkes and soofganiot (potato pancakes and doughnuts for those of you who don’t speak Jewish). We will be rocking some falafel for our celebration, assuming we get our furnace to work (it’s a balmy 58 degrees inside my house right now). I know Hanukkah is the festival of lights and some degree of flame is involved, but particularly on night one, even 4 menorahs probably won’t generate enough heat to fuel our little party.

In the spirit of the holiday, I leave you with this classic clip. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

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Stalking & Technology

I had the pleasure of attending a really good talk yesterday on stalking. The speaker showed this video to the group afterward, which made the humorous, but very valid point that cell phones have become an incredible tool for offenders, even more so as the technology evolves.

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Oh, Canada…

The updates to the Canada page have begun. Our first entry: a comprehensive overview of forensic science in Canada. Thanks to Sheila Early, who will be curating this page. Stay tuned for further updates. And by all means, please let us know your thoughts about this new aspect of FHO…

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DV/IPV

Data on IPV, Sexual Violence, and Stalking

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is hosting a webinar December 16th at 1 pm ET: National and State-level Data on Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Violence, and Stalking, presented by Michele Lynberg Black, PhD, MPH. Attendance is free, but pre-registration is required.

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Workshop in ATL

Please ignore this if you didn’t attend the leadership/management workshop in ATL this past October:

For those of you who were at the workshop on leadership and management at IAFN and did not receive the report, please let me know. We had a lot of illegible emails, so the number of bouncebacks was pretty high.

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DV/IPV Sexual Assault

The Spread of HIV Through Sexual Violence

ReachMD has a new podcast available now on the spread of HIV through sexual violence against women. It’s part of their Clinician’s Roundtable series. Access is free, but you must register to access the site. You have the choice of listening online, downloading the podcast for later review or downloading transcripts of the session. You can also listen live on XM Satellite radio–scheduled times are on the site.

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Articles of Note Child Abuse DV/IPV Sexual Assault

Articles of Note: December Edition

Time once again for a run down of some of the new and noteworthy articles in the current literature. All of these are from the November/December/January issues. As always, please keep in mind this in no way a comprehensive list; simply items that have caught my attention from a selection of peer-reviewed journals. Links lead to PubMed or publisher abstracts; from there you can choose what’s worth a.) paying for; b.) a pilgrimage to your nearest medical library;  or c.) downloading via the full-text access you possibly have at your disposal.

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10 Things I’m Loving Right Now: The Gifting Edition

I am a big fan of giving gifts that mean something. Not necessarily gifts that are serious, but gifts that speak to the recipient on some level. So here are 10 things I’m loving right now, just in time for the holidays: