Citation

Etherton HD. J. Emerg. Nurs. 2018; 44(4): 322.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Emergency Nurses Association, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jen.2018.04.006

PMID

29976310

Abstract

I wish to thank Destiny C. Delgadillo, MSN, RN, of Tacoma, Washington, for her article “When There is No Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner: Emergency Nursing Care for Female Adult Sexual Assault Patients” in the July 2017 Journal of Emergency Nursing. The article is important in its timeliness because of the critical shortage of sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs) and a backlog of rape-kit evidence. Unfortunately, the wrong side is winning in the battle against sexual assault. In no way do I mean to imply that staff nurses are abetting the perpetrators, but even with an article as guidance, they are still not at the level of proficiency of a SANE nurse. And the backlog of evidence further impedes the staff nurse from preventing sexual assault; perpetrators remain at large and continue to repeat their offenses.

I have trained to be a SANE nurse, and the article appears to be correct but not nearly as in depth as a SANE training course. A SANE examination can take as much as 4 to 6 hours to complete, and I know of no ED nurse who has that kind of time to devote to a single task in a 12-hour shift. Further, when the evidence goes to court, a defense attorney will tear away at the lack of experience of a staff nurse in evidence collection and preservation. These are only 2 of the plethora of reasons that we, as a nursing community, must push for an increase in the number of SANE nurses. During our push for more SANE nurses, we should also make a plea for funds and personnel to relieve the backlog of rape kits ...

Language: en