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Unit.E.2.5.
Forensic Examiner Sexual Assault Nurse
Australia |
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Canada |
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Canada
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"Alberta's first sexual assault response team
was recently launched in Edmonton with a unique core
of professional staff. The team's 11 nurses have all
undergone sexual assault nurse examiner training (SANE),
a program that is relatively new in Canada" (Kent,
2000).
The BC Women's Sexual Assault Service is operated
by the BC Women's Health Centre (part of
the Children and Women's Health Centre of BC) in partnership
with the Vancouver General
Hospital Emergency Department. It is a team of female
family physicians and nurses based in the
Emergency Department of the Vancouver General Hospital,
who provide a 24-hour on-call
service for adult and adolescent victims of sexual
assault. In most cases of sexual assault for
which there is police involvement, the victim is taken
to the Sexual Assault Service for
examination and treatment. The objectives of the service
are to treat the patient for the effects of
the assault, to collect evidence to give to police
in cases where the victim wants to report the
assault and to provide limited immediate and follow-up
counselling. Over the past 5 years the
service has made considerable efforts to improve physicians'
ability to detect forensic evidence;
these efforts have included the purchase of a colposcope
to detect the presence of genital trauma
not visible to the naked eye (McGregor, Le, Marion
& Wiebe,1999).
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International |
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United Kingdom |
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United States |
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| SARS began
as a result of a concern of nurses working in the obstetrics-gynecology
clinic at Hennepin County Medical Center, where rape
victims were referred for follow-up care. The nurses
realized that a full 75 percent of the victims never
came for follow-up, and they wanted to do more for victims
that did not return. SARS began as a Research Demonstration
Treatment Program funded by the National Institute of
Mental Health (Ledray, 1992, p. 217).
Prior to
the development of these programs, nurses realized
that lengthy waits in emergency departments produced
increased stress on sexual assault victims. Exams
were often performed in a rushed manner by physicians
who were simultaneously managing multiple emergency
patients and had minimal or no emergency training
(Ledray, 1992, p. 218).
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Focus Points
Reference
Ledray,
1992, p. 218.
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| McGregor,
M. J., Le, G., Marion, S. A., & Wiebe, E. |
(1999).
Examination for sexual assault: Is the documentation
of physical injury associated with the laying of
charges? A retrospective cohort study. Canadian
Medical Association Journal, 160(11), 1565-1574.
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Topic
E - Forensic (ER) Emergency > Section E.2.0. Forensic Roles>
Unit.E.2.5. Forensic Examiner/ Sexual Assault Nurse
