OJJDP just released a new resource: Recognizing When a Child’s Injury or Illness Is Caused by Abuse (PDF). It’s written for law enforcement, so this is really more of a SART or MDT resource, than a clinical text. I was happy to see it addresses issues like aging bruises based on color (you can’t), and provides some good overview information about a variety of injuries and other findings. I haven’t gone through the whole thing, but it looks promising. Peds folks weigh in…
Month: July 2014
NCMEC has a free webinar coming up, Missing and Exploited: Child Sex Trafficking Reporting and Recovery Planning (PDF). The session will be held August 19th from 2-3:30pm ET. Click through for details:
After yesterday’s post I received a request from an FHO reader for more resources on caring for patients who have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting (literature seems to be divided on the proper terminology so I am using both here). Not surprisingly, there isn’t a huge amount of clinically-focused information out there, and much of it is specific to obstetrics. I rounded up what appeared to be the best and most current articles and clinical guidelines (mostly free full-text) and included links to previous FHO posts addressing the same topic. As always, it’s not exhaustive (I opted to leave most of the obstetric-specific information out), but hopefully it’s useful.
Today is my sweet kid’s 13th birthday, so I am officially the parent of a teenager. I have no idea how that happened. A minute ago she was a newborn and now she’s this funny, interesting, incredibly smart kid who makes me proud every day. Naturally we spent the weekend celebrating (ziplining and dim sum, anyone?) and gorging on homemade Hostess-type treats (my spouse whipped up Twinkies, Ho-Hos and Cupcakes complete with squiggly frosting). Pretty much the only thing I could do after the weekend calorie bombardment was to loll around last night and surf my social media sites. Which is what I did. Here’s what caught my eye since last we spoke:
This week’s full-text offering is from The Permanente Journal and it addresses an issue that certainly doesn’t get discussed enough in healthcare circles: male patients who have experienced child sexual abuse. Coincidentally, I just saw that IAFN posted this article on Facebook, as well, so perhaps some of you have read the article already. If not, I recommend it. Click through for more details:
#STD Surveillance
Surveillance data is extremely useful for us; the CDC guidelines are one resource for making decisions about how we treat our patients, but the actual information about what STDs are being seen in our communities, what problems may exists regarding things like antibiotic resistance, and other considerations, are also part of the calculus. For instance, if you have a high rate of syphilis in your community, you may choose to test as a part of your patient care.
The newest edition of Futures Without Violence‘s Health E-Bulletin (PDF) is now available. Particularly useful is the 1st article on why the ACA-mandated domestic violence screening matters and the one on reproductive coercion. Worth your time.
Since Last We Spoke 7-21-14
We finally cleared the last of our houseguests yesterday (that’s 10 days of people in our tiny place for those of you tracking), so we’re back to status quo. I head down to the NAC for the Army this week, but aside from that it should be relatively mellow. I was busy playing tourist in my own city this weekend, but there was still plenty of time to catch up on the news of the day. Here’s what’s caught my eye since last we spoke:
This week’s Full-Text Friday offering addresses the issue of multiple perpetrator rapes of adolescent girls (sad commentary: I can’t combine those words in the title of this post because of the disgusting trolls that come out of the woodwork). I hear a lot of speculative testimony, and occasionally it is about expectations of injury following sexual assault by multiple assailants. There’s not a ton of research on this topic, so I am pleased to offer this article up as a way to help inform us about the clinical picture of this patient population:
A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words
Somehow I missed this when it was held in May, but thankfully there’s an archived presentation: Vera Institute’s Center on Victimization and Safety has an archived webinar available on helping patients with disabilities understand the sexual assault medical-forensic exam. A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words is available for viewing; I haven’t reviewed it yet, but it looks like a pretty invaluable contribution to the discussion around promising practices. Click through for details:
The TB dye guide is one of the original guides on this site and it hasn’t been updated since I posted it first in 2009. So I’ve remedied that–hopefully you’ll find it helpful. Let me know if you think I’ve forgotten any valuable resources. I’m always happy to add them.
If you aren’t looking to your state anti-violence coalitions for continuing education, you’re missing some great opportunities. State coalitions do a lot of training, and many are putting on webinars and online courses that have relevance far beyond their state’s borders. Click through for some of the upcoming events, and feel free to add others in the comments (I’ll take those outside the US, too, please):
This weekend was all about the big promotion, with family descending upon DC and filling every corner of our tiny dollhouse of a home. But it was pretty spectacular, and now almost everyone has gone home, and life should return to normal. Normal, of course, includes travel, so I’ll head to the Air Force JAG school later in the week for a tick. Still, there was plenty of time to read, and as always, it appears sexual violence is dominating the headlines (including this massive and painfully familiar sounding article that appeared on the front page of the NY Times). Here’s what has caught my eye since last we spoke:
Trigger Warning: Breakfast
This is such a powerful, compelling piece– everyone should read it. Thanks to all of you who sent it my way.
I am so excited to sit down with this: Delivery and Evaluation of Sexual Assault Forensic (SAFE) Training Programs (PDF). The report addresses the initial offering of the online SAFE training + 2 day clinical practicum provided by IAFN and evaluated by Debra Patterson and her team. There’s some really promising results here and it gives us some direction for rethinking how we deliver both didactic and clinical education. Definitely a worthwhile read, especially for those of you conducting SAFE training or debating ways in which to get new clinicians educated.
Spotting Bad Science
Yesterday, NSVRC tweeted this infographic, and it pretty much made my morning (which may be a sad statement to make, I don’t know). I have added it to the Evaluating Research clinical guide; the PDF would make an excellent handout for a burgeoning journal club or staff meeting on currency of practice or testimony. Bonus: it’s also available in Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian.
I haven’t posted a TED talk in awhile, but I was interested in this one, in part because of how I make my living and also because my spouse and I will be doing a session at this year’s IAFN conference on being an effective public speaker (p. 19: The Art and Science (and Law) of Public Speaking). While I didn’t find the vocal exercises section at the end to be all that useful for my purposes, I found his breakdown about the mechanics of effective speaking to really resonate:
Here we go: vacation is behind us and a modified (but still busy) travel season resumes for our household. Happily it’s not me on the road this week, but after taking a week off, I can hardly corral my to-do list. Always a trade-off, that whole taking time off thing. Hopefully US readers enjoyed a happy and relaxing 4th–we certainly did (and it was a far more social one than I am used to). But all in all, there was plenty of downtime and a good amount of reading therein. Here’s what’s caught my eye since last we spoke:
Here’s one of those issues we often get little to no training on: Vera Institute’s Center on Victimization and Safety is hosting a webinar, Tips for Working with American Sign Language Interpreters. The session will be held July 22nd from 1-2:30 pm CT. Click through for details: