Davis Plus, those nice people who make the drug guides, have an online wound care tutorial that’s brief and easy to use (requires Flash). For those of you who need a little refresher on wound types and dressings (and some gnarly photos to go along with them), here’s a little quicky for your viewing pleasure. There’s also a self-assessment at the end, should you want to test your knowledge.
I had you at “gnarly photos”, didn’t I?
The University of Utah Eccles Health Science Library has an online firearms tutorial available here. It’s easy to use and has almost no bells and whistles (but it has photos!) so you should be able to view this on any computer. I’m not sure when the course was last updated (some of the statistics look old), but the mechanics of firearms and the appearance of gunshot wounds haven’t really changed, so age shouldn’t be a significant issue. It was created for pathologists, meaning it has a medical, rather than law enforcement, flavor.
On the Diane Rehm Show yesterday, Diane interviewed the authors of the new book Picking Cotton, about the circumstances that led to the writing of the book:
A rape victim mistakenly accused Ronald Cotton of being her attacker. He served eleven years in prison before DNA evidence exonerated him. They both join Diane [Rehm] to present their joint memoir of injustice and forgiveness.
Brown Medical School, along with several other organizations, put together an online tutorial for emergency healthcare providers on human trafficking. I’m unsure when the tutorial was created (if someone knows, please pass that along), but it appears to be no older than 2005 based on the materials cited, so info is relatively current. Much of it is text-based, but it is well-linked in many places.
From the archives (since January 2023):
Hepatitis is the often forgotten conversation when it comes to sexual assault medical-forensic care. I find a lot of folks are skipping over it in trainings and in working individually with patients, even though we know that many of our patients may be at greater risk for contracting hepatitis than HIV. The University of Washington and the Seattle STD/HIV Prevention Training Center have teamed up for an online course on viral hepatitis, funded by the CDC.
Violence Against Women has a free podcast available based on the 2008 article, When will adolescents tell someone about dating violence victimization? (Black, et al. Vol. 14, No. 7, 741-758). You can read an abstract of the article here.
SORRY: THIS LINK APPEARS TO BE BROKEN. I HAVE CONTACTED THE PUBLISHER AND WILL POST A NEW LINK IF I RECEIVE ONE.
Sunday is International Women’s Day, and the 2009 United Nations theme being used for the day, fittingly enough, is Women and Men United to End Violence Against Women and Girls. Social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, have created networks in honor of IWD; there are also almost one thousand events in more than 60 countries in honor of the day. This includes more than 300 events in the US and Canada, alone. Although some of these events have already occurred, there are still plenty happening over the weekend.
Let us know if you end up attending one!
(March is Traumatic Brain Injury Month…)
Last November, the Northeast Center for Special Care recorded a podcast on domestic violence and traumatic brain injury. The interview, conducted with a staff member from the NY Coalition Against Domestic Violence, offers a clear, basic snapshot of the issue in a manageable, bite-sized portion (it’s only 26 minutes long). Good for clinicians new to the issue…
The US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, has a free PTSD101 program for healthcare professionals. The courses contained in the program (and there are many), are divided into 6 different categories and include topics such as vicarious traumatization, PTSD and sexual assault, combat stress injuries, and cultural dimensions of PTSD. The list is pretty extensive. Best of all? CEs available for everyone.
There’s a lot of chatter in my on-line world right now about the so-called No-Lie MRI (or as it’s known in the scientific community, fMRI, f=functional). Some people believe brain imaging, alone or as one tool in a larger arsenal, may provide the ability to determine if someone is lying. The legal world, not surprisingly, is fascinated by this concept, but it seems like it’s a long way from being able to meet Daubert/Frye standards. Still, people are certainly talking about the potential this technology could have and the ethics of using it (on assailants, yes, but also on victims).
Dr. Rachel Berger, from the University of Pittsburgh (a source of previous blog posts on this site), gave pediatric grand rounds at the Seattle Children’s Hospital last summer. You can view a webcast of her talk, Using Serum Biomarkers to Screen for Inflicted Traumatic Brain Injury: How Close Are We? archived on the hosptal’s site (warning: video plays automatically). Physicians seeking CEs can submit this form for up to 1 AMA PRA Category 1 credit. Sorry, nurses, no CEU equivalent from this offering.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has released their report, Shattered Lives: Immediate Medical Care Vital for Sexual Violence Victims. “Based on MSF’s work in Liberia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Africa, Colombia, and other countries, the report, titled “Shattered Lives,” highlights the need for emergency medical care to be made available to people who have been raped. MSF also stresses that such services need to be truly accessible, with guarantees for confidentiality and an offer of comprehensive care.”
You can read an overview of the report here, or download the full report (PDF).
Providing linguistically and culturally appropriate care is a mandate for all clinicians. How we do that, particularly for our patients in crisis, is often easier said than done. There is an art to using translators in the clinical setting that is almost never formally taught. However, there are actually a few tutorials out there for effectively engaging translation services when working with patients/victims of violence. They range from simple slide presentations to interactive multimedia courses. So I’ve highlighted a few notable ones, which you can review after the jump.
Audio Digest has free podcasts available on a range of disaster-related healthcare topics. You can download audio files on PTSD, principles for initial response, infectious disease, incident management and disaster mental health. Even better, they have kindly segmented the files, so you have the option of downloading just parts of the podcasts or the whole megillah.
Looking for more on FGM? Check out the Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project for a host of resources and up-to-date information.
USAID has an online education site with quite a few reproductive health courses. One of them is on female genital mutilation/cutting. Because this issue is coming up for us in a variety of clinical situations, I thought it would be helpful to post a course providing a basic overview of the clinical picture.
Here’s a post for those of you interested in exploring other aspects of forensics (assuming this isn’t your current focus): Introduction to Legal Nurse Consulting. It provides 2 CEUs and if offered in a typical article-posttest format. Cost is $60.
Continuing the legal theme: What the Nurse Should Do to Prepare for a Deposition is a CEU offering that just showed up in my inbox over the weekend. o.5 CEUs are available and the cost is $15. It’s a standard article-posttest format, from what I can tell. Could be pretty basic. However, legal CE offerings for healthcare providers are few and far between, so it’s worth checking out. If anyone takes it, please let us know.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has a pretty incredible online course on international forensic investigation. What may be most unbelievable is that it is offered free of charge. Although it doesn’t appear that CEs are attached, don’t let that deter you–there is some seriously chewy content in this offering.