April is both Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Child Abuse Prevention Month: two issues central to many of our practices, both of which can take a serious toll on clinicians. It seems like compassion fatigue (and its sisters, vicarious trauma and burnout) don’t get nearly enough attention in our professional circles. But really, they should–a recent study found that 85% of emergency department nurses surveyed reported moderate to high levels of compassion fatigue. I’d be interested in what the results would look like if they surveyed a group of forensic clinicians.
