Category: Sexual Assault

Good morning. I hope all of our Canadian readers had a lovely Thanksgiving. Tonight begins Yom Kippur, so I will be knocking off a bit early to get ready for services. Apologies for the lack of post yesterday. It was a federal holiday in the US, so I played hooky with my wife who had the day off. And let’s face it–the only thing I’ve read since last we spoke is about our unfortunate Republican candidate, and no one needs more to read about him. So let’s move on to things that lift us up, shall we? Namely quality education that improve our capacity as clinicians, this one from Futures Without Violence:

They are hosting a webinar, Legal Aspects of Human Trafficking for Health Providers: Case Studies and Legal Remedies. The session will be held October 20th from 3-4:40pm ET. From the site:

Description: This webinar will provide health care providers with insight into the legal remedies available to human trafficking victims. Each year, thousands of men, women, and children are held in forced labor, forced prostitution, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. This webinar will explore the role health care providers can play in identifying trafficking victims, providing documentation, developing expert testimony, and providing affidavits for submission in legal cases. The program will cover both US citizen and foreign-born victims trafficked in the United States. Presenters will use case studies to discuss trafficking victims’ contact with the providers, including missed opportunities when victims might have been identified but were not. The speakers, both attorneys, have more than three decades of combined experience in the human trafficking field.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify legal remedies – immigration, civil, and criminal – available to trafficking victims in the United States;
2. Define the critical role that healthcare providers can play in identifying victims, providing documentation, developing expert testimony, and providing affidavits for submission in legal cases;
3. Identify human trafficking red flags through case examples of victims seeking medical care.

Presenters:

Hanni Stoklosa, MD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA and Executive Director, HEAL Trafficking.

Stephanie Richard, JD, Policy & Legal Services Director, Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), Los Angeles, CA

Martina Vandenberg, JD, Founder and President, The Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center (HT Pro Bono), Washington, DC.

Register here.

The Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury have a webinar coming up this month, Unique Perspectives for Women with Traumatic Brain Injury: Gender Differences and Coping Strategies. It will be held October 13th from 1-2:30 pm ET. While I imagine it will address mild TBI specifically from combat-related activities, these issues also apply for many of our interpersonal violence patients, such as domestic violence victims. The gender-specific nature of this session makes it particularly interesting to me. Click through for details:

From the site:

The data regarding active-duty servicewomen who have sustained traumatic brain injury (TBI) suggest their experiences, aftereffects and outcomes differ from servicemen. This presentation will integrate current research and clinical expertise to advance health care provider awareness of TBI among women serving in the military. The speakers will present current evidence comparing female athletes and active-duty service members with a TBI history as well as data about servicewomen with and without symptoms from co-occurring conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety and chronic pain. The presenters will also address the gaps in the present knowledge base concerning gender differences and TBI.

At the conclusion of this webinar, participants will be able to:

1. Describe three ways in which brain injuries in women (including concussion or mild TBI) are unique.
2. Articulate factors that may account for gender differences in TBI incidence, severity and recovery.
3. Apply best practices in the education of women who have sustained a TBI to facilitate recovery.

Good morning from DEN! A quick update for today: EVAWI has a new DNA series now available that might be of interest. Click through for details and links to the four bulletins:

Last week, several articles were published about new cases of drug-resistant gonorrhea cropping up in Hawaii. It’s a good reminder of the importance of being connected to your local health department and staying on top of surveillance data. As with last week’s conversation about emergency contraception, here is another issue to monitor and discuss with your team/medical director.

Yesterday, Medscape posted an article about new warnings issued in the UK regarding emergency contraception. The bumper sticker version is that some medications and herbal supplements may impair the efficacy of both levonorgestrel and ulipristal. While the US has not issued any warnings to date, the concern is a valid one, and worth consideration. My recommendation? Read and take back to your teams and your medical directors for further discussion. (Press coverage in the UK here, here and here.)

Home from PHX, next up, DET and then on to DEN (where I can’t wait to see so many FHO readers). Unexpectedly I have a whole week in the office, so I am trying to get finishing touches put on this. In the meantime, here’s a bit of what caught my eye since last we spoke:

Heading to Phoenix later in the week for this conference–hoping to see many of you there. In the meantime I’m slogging through as much as possible before I step foot in an airport since I am traveling to 3 cities (and sandwiching a local court martial in between) in these next 3 weeks. Obviously I am pretty geeked about Denver, but there’s much to be done, including 3 brand new talks. So suffice it to say, between traveling this weekend and the to do list, there wasn’t that much reading. But there were a few things that caught my eye since last we spoke–insomnia will do that…

I’ll be on one of the panels next week at the 2016 National Sexual Assault Symposium in DC. They have just opened up registration for people who want to live stream the full event–it’ll take place 8 & 9 September from 8am-5pm ET each day. You can also follow along on Twitter using #NSAPS2016. Click through for info about the symposium:

So excited for this–the SANE Program Development and Operation Guide is now available. Funded by the Office of Victims of Crime, the update of this document was spearheaded by Susan Chasson, and is a fantastic resource for everyone working to start or sustain SANE programs. Can’t wait to work my way through it.