Forensic Healthcare Online

I can already tell it’s going to be one of those weeks. Panicky phone calls, 300 hundred road miles, piles of paperwork and trial prep have sucked the humor out of my life (at least temporarily). Not to mention the 6am flight I have to look forward to tomorrow. I am, to be frank, a tad overwhelmed. So today, let’s forget about all things scientific and formal-like.  I give you, instead, a brand new podcast from my favorite storytelling site, The Moth. Steve Osborne’s a former NYPD detective, and he tells a great story about interacting with families on the job. Similar in some ways to our interactions with families; completely different in many respects. It’s only about 14 minutes long, but it’s NSFW (unless you have co-workers like mine), so pick your listening spot carefully.

If you work with cops, you know him. Maybe you don’t know this exact detective, but we all know ones just like him. I hope you enjoy it.

Well, people, this is my last week of being at home for the next month. I”ve had two uninterrupted weeks with the family, but this weekend, it’s back on the road for me. Assuming that the Navy base I’ll be on allows me internet access (and you just never know), there shouldn’t be any interruption in posts next week. In the meantime, check out what’s happening over at the sustainability site:

• a webinar from the Family Justice Center Alliance on setting up foundations and 501(c)3′s
• an interesting piece over at the Huffington Post on handling conflict
• and some unfortunate words many of us seem to live by (I’m talking to you, Val P)

I’m going to try and cut out a bit early today to enjoy this last day of summer break with my kiddo; there’s a wedding anniversary to celebrate tonight (you’ll have to ask Rob which number–I never get it right), and Sally’s birthday in Harrisburg this weekend. All in all, it’s shaping up to be a fantastic weekend. Hope yours will be, too. See you back here on Monday.

Monday, pharmaceutical companies can start marketing a generic version of Plan B. I hope this will increase access to emergency contraception (EC), but I am skeptical. Part of the problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of how Plan B works (or doesn’t work, for that matter). Part of the problem is the regulatory issues which won’t change just because there’s a generic version.

I’d like to think that clinicians are better informed about EC today, but I’m not sure that’s true everywhere. However, I stumbled across a pretty cool tool that can assist you in putting together a high quality presentation on this topic, should you care to provide some training to staff or colleagues.

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The National Child Protection Training Center is offering a free webinar: When the Victim is Very Young: Investigation and Litigation of Child Sexual Abuse Cases. It will be held September 17th at 3pm Central and Victor Vieth will be the faculty for the session. Please note: advanced registration is required and closes September 10th. Click here to register.

I know it’s not the most clinically-focused offering I’ve put up, but I also know there are a lot of Victor Vieth fans among you. Plus it’s great info to take back to your MDTs or SARTs.

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The IPV world is a bit up in arms right now with the publication of JAMA’s recent study that universal screening doesn’t improve health outcomes or reduce violence. Not everyone is praising this study, and I think there are reasons to look at it critically. However, in the process of doing so, if you’d like to earn yourself a little CE credit, Medscape has an offering right now based on the article (physicians net 0.25 credits for completing the article and posttest).

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I don’t know how many of you read the Sunday NY Times, but this past weekend the Magazine ran a special series: Saving the World’s Women. There were a few articles that were particularly interesting, including The Women’s Crusade and an interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Not surprisingly, trafficking and gender-based violence were discussed repeatedly.

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It’s been an insanely busy week, but a really good one. And there’s some great stuff over at the sustainability site this week. Aside from an evaluation webinar happening today over at OVC (I hope I’ll be able to share archived materials soon), you’ll also find:

• An interesting article on boomerang recruiting that gives some food for thought
• Information we’ve been waiting for for some time: study results from Dr. Rebecca Campbell and colleagues on the impact of SANE programs on the criminal justice system. It’s great information to add to the healthcare-related data she’s already published, to provide a well-rounded picture of why SANE programs work.

It’s going to definitely be a working weekend for me, but hopefully not for my friend Tara, who just passed her FNP boards. Considering she was sweating the exam in Oregon last week, allow me to be the first to say, “I told you so!” (oh, yeah, and congratulations…). Enjoy the fishing, Tara–you earned it.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

CROWD has a really terrific powerpoint on gynecological consideration in treating women with physical disabilities. I post it here because it’s a great overview of some of the exam techniques that can be useful (a consideration for those of us completing SAFE exams); challenges in identifying STIs and other GYN issues in this population; and potential red flags for physical and sexual abuse. The slides are accompanied by detailed notes, making the whole thing a great educational tool.

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Well, I finally did something I should have done long ago: went through all of the posted webinars and provided archive info for them where available. This means that any live event I have posted should have a link to the PDF presentation, audio, video and/or supplemental materials except:

1. If the event hasn’t actually occurred yet
2. The information was posted in a separate entry OR
3. I couldn’t find archived materials

Click on the Webinar link on the right side of the page under Categories to pull up all of the webinars that have been posted here. All updated information is in red. You can now find archived materials for some of the most popular posts I’ve put up, including the recent Injury & Terminology session, Death Investigation, and Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in Tribal Communities.

You’re welcome:)

The good folks over at the Center of Excellence in Elder Abuse and Neglect have posted the presentations from this year’s ASA‐NCOA Aging in America Conference 2009, Elder Abuse sessions (PDF) on their site. It’s an unbelievable resource, with 16 different sets of slides on a wide variety of elder abuse issues, several  health care related. I seriously recommend you check this out if your practice includes the elderly. It’s not only useful for clinicians, but it would be a valuable asset for many of multidisciplinary team members, as well.

UPDATE: Broken link is now fixed.

OVC has another free web forum coming up August 26th from 2-3pm ET: Responding to Homeless Victims of Sexual Assault. No registration is required. Jessy Haywood, community educator and trainer at the Center for Women and Families, and Katya Fels Smyth, founder of the Full Frame Initiative and On the Rise, Inc., will be facilitating the discussion. To find out how to participate in this session, you can check out the directions here.

Just a head’s up: I’m facilitating one of these at the end of September on program sustainability. I’ll post more on it when I have the official details.

I’m sorry to say, but it’s been a slow week over at the sustainability site–mostly because I was on a site visit this week for the project in Oregon. Posts were light, sadly. I’m hoping next week we might have the next bulletin, so cross your fingers. In the meantime:

• More announcements about our new prosecution institute (and check out our upcoming training events here)
• An online SANE course beginning next month, if you’re one of the many trying to figure out creative new ways to get new nurses trained

It’s looking like a gorgeous couple of days here in the 216, and for once I have no travel planned for a couple of weeks. Going to try and get in a little R&R. Hope you’ll be doing the same. Enjoy your weekend!

This summer, over at the DOVE program, where I still maintain a clinical practice (albeit a sporadic one), we’ve been working on some strangulation research. With a pretty sizeable number of cases in our domestic violence program available for review, we were blessed to have a fantastic young woman (and future physician) named Michelle join our merry band for the summer to collect descriptive data. Michelle whipped through the data collection process in a matter of weeks, and we’re eagerly awaiting the analysis (which she’s sadly not in charge of, or we probably would have had those numbers within about 24 hours of her finishing data collection).

As part of her work this summer, Michelle also did a pretty comprehensive lit search on strangulation. She’s generously agreed to share it with FHO readers, so I thought I would fold it into a clinical guide on the topic. Please note that this clinical guide is specific to strangulation in domestic violence cases, and doesn’t address strangulation in all of it’s other contexts.

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IAFN is hosting a webinar September 10th, 2-3pm ET, Confirmation Bias and Its Impact on Forensic Nurses. Cost is $30 for members ($40 for nonmembers) and the session is meant for all forensic specialties. One CEU will be awarded for participation. You can check out a definition of confirmation bias here.

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JWI is hosting a new webinar September 3rd from 12-1pm, The Coercive Control Model: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. Cost for the session is $25 (but free for members). Pre-registration is required. Dr. Evan Stark, Professor and Chair, Department of Urban Health Administration, Rutgers University, “will discuss what adapting a coercive control model implies for intervention, shelters, forensic evidence and criminal law, etc.”

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