Apologies for my absence, but I have been decidedly disconnected these last couple days while at JFTB Los Alamitos. I will try and make it up to you next week, but I will be here for the bulk of the week, so let’s see how it goes (and if you’ll be in Kansas City for the conference please come by and say hello).
The National Alliance to End Domestic Violence is hosting a webinar on Elder Abuse: Domestic Violence in Later Life. It will be held May 23rd from 12-1:30pm ET.
Have you seen the CDC’s new Understanding Evidence site? It’s specifically geared toward those of us who work in the area of violence, and really, please go spend some time with it. As a bonus–free nursing CEs upon completion of each module. If you’re not sure how to use the new interactive site PreventConnect has a webinar this Friday at 11am PT to help remedy that.
A quick post to wish everyone a happy Nurses Day (in the US, or International Nurses Day, which is Sunday–you pick). I’m heading out the door to SoCal for a couple different stops with the Marines (1st defense, then prosecution, so should be a lively week), but I managed to get a little reading done during my brief stop at home. Here’s what’s caught my attention since last we spoke:
First, what a lovely day I spent with Vermont nurses today. Really interesting conversation (plus the location, which I tweeted, was awesome). Second, between training Army lawyers earlier in the week and training 2 sets of Marine lawyers next week, can I tell you how nice it was to be in a room full of clinicians? Not that I don’t love me some lawyers, but still…
Medscape has some interesting articles from this past week that are worth a look…
I regret that I will not be able to start our week as we usually do here at FHO. I am, as I type this, sitting in the US Air club at DCA logging the first of what will be many, many hours spent in airports over the next 5 weeks–23 out of 35 days on the road. I am in my final push to the summer when I largely stop traveling in order to have time with my girlchild. So I’m headed to Kansas City today for a hot minute to teach for the Army before I head back east to Vermont for a workshop later this week. My hope is that I will have regular posts up, but please extend a bit of latitude if I fall short. In the meantime, please read this. Especially if you are a clinician or a manager of people (yes, it’s a business article, but it is relevant nonetheless), because I know I could use a bit of help, and perhaps–just maybe–you could, too.
The Injury Control Research Center for Suicide Prevention is hosting a webinar May 8th at 2pm ET–The Intersection of Suicide Research and Public Health Practice: Suicide and Domestic Violence. The session is free. read a full description after the jump:
Yesterday I posted about the release of the 2nd edition of the National Protocol. Today I wanted to mention a couple important resources. The first is the upcoming webinar on the Protocol changes that will take place May 21st at 2pm ET. Attendance is free, but registration is a must. The other resources worth mentioning are the short (PDF) and long (PDF) fact sheets on the Protocol changes that give a good overview of what’s new.
“Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.”
Thomas A. Edison
(via swissmiss)
Finally. The 2nd edition of the National Protocol for Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Exams, Adolescent/Adult (PDF) from the the US Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women, is now available.
I get a lot of questions about the resources I rely on–what are the essential books, journals and websites I turn to to do this work. I am a firm believer that you can find relevance anywhere you choose to look for it. I am also a firm believer that all knowledge makes you better at what you do, period. So I recently received an email from a relatively new FHO reader asking about my go-to non-clinical resources, in response to a conversation we’d been having about program management issues. A few of these I’ve mentioned before, but I don’t think I’ve ever done a single list of these resources, so without further delay, a new 10 Things: Non-Clinical Resources.
I don’t know about you, but last week I reached my news saturation point. By Friday night I had to shut down my electronics and just get away from all of it. (My eyes needed a break, as the brilliant Amy Poehler stated.) So a lot of what I’ve been reading *isn’t* about Boston, but about everything else going on in the world. I included a couple things that were particularly relevant from last week’s horrible violence in my list of what I’ve been reading since last we spoke, but I really tried to protect myself a bit by limiting what I was exposed to (and let’s be very clear–I’m extremely lucky that I could make that decision). Here’s hoping this week is a better one for all of us.
VAWnet has a new special collection available–Trauma Informed Domestic Violence Services: Understanding the Framework and Approach. The definitions, the research–it’s all there. For those of you thinking about expanding your practices to include DV patients or actually already providing those services (but really, this is one for everybody, because DV patients are coming in for services in all of our units and departments across the board) here’s a good use of your time. Even better? Send it to the rest of your team, then develop some discussion questions about trauma informed care in the context of your own program and have a great dialogue at your next staff meeting.
SAFEta is hosting an upcoming free webinar, Sexual Assault in the Older Patient. The session will be held May 9th at 2pm ET. Dr. Kathleen Brown will be the featured presenter.
Because almost everything I do professionally is virtual, save some of the teaching and testimony work, being able to communicate online is pretty vital. But I don’t think you have to be in the consulting business to understand why it is a critical skill, and clinicians aren’t exempt from this. So I loved Harvard Business Blog’s piece: How To Avoid Virtual Miscommunication. And they address one of my biggest pet peeves–the sloppy email: “The underlying message is that those individuals are far too busy to be bothered with writing perfectly polished text. Unfortunately, sloppy e-mails at best require wasting time trying to decipher them, and at worse cause workplace misunderstandings and costly errors.” It’s a short piece worth a read–especially if you are a project consultant/partner/manager of any stripe or someone managing a clinical team.
Annals of Internal Medicine has published a new position paper from the American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards: Online Medical Professionalism: Patient and Public Relationships. I haven’t seen a lot from the physician groups on this issue, so I look forward to reading through it. RWJF’s Human Capital Blog has a nice summary of the paper here. And if you’ve never read the National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s white paper on social media use, you can find that here (PDF).
Our thoughts are with our friends and colleagues in Boston. With those of you who ran, or had family or friends running; those of you at the scene; those of you on the squads; and those of you working in the Emergency Departments and trauma units. Here’s to finding some peace amidst the chaos, some light in dark times.
I confess, an absolutely gorgeous weekend here in DC kept me outside and away from all electronics most of the time. So what I’ve been reading since last we spoke is a bit scant. However, there’s some good stuff among the list for you this week–if you read nothing else, check out the piece on busyness for sure. Also, I have changed the plugin I use for mobile viewing of this site. You should be able to read it much more easily on your smart phones and other mobile devices.
This article from the Wall Street Journal is specifically about physicians, but there is no doubt in my mind that the lessons in it extend to all of us who do this work. I was particularly interested in their graphic about the price of poor communication. Something to think about–and maybe discuss at your next team meeting.
Time for this month’s Articles of Note, where we give you some of the latest published research from the peer reviewed journals. As always this is not an exhaustive list, just some of the eye catching stuff. For those of you working with the elder population, this is an especially good month for you.