[texascowgirl]

Hospital I currently work at has ER nurses who are not certified, nonSANE doing them.
I refuse to do them, by the way.

[traumaRUs]

Are they advanced practice nurses? If not, then I would be concerned about going to court and having the evidence not admissable since they wouldn't be considered competent to do the exam.

[canoehead]

the SANE nurse has stopped doing them r/t being called in at all hours, and pressure to drop her family and come in. Also a high frequency of cases she considered bogus.

I did two in two shifts, one of them on a three year old. I'd NEVER done it before, and you bet that if I find out the evidence is thrown out just because I was the one who did it I will be mighty ******.

I've worked in hospitals where you were expected to be able to do them, sane or no sane certification, but the most experienced person generally volunteered to take the patient.

[canoehead]

txcowgirl, what do you base your refusal on? And what happens to the patient? Do they get transferred out, does management come in?

[nightmare]

Usual foreign ignorance but what is a SANE nurse! I have definately known a few insane nurses,do we have to have a sanity test now before nursing!

[chris_at_lucas_RN]

http://www.sane-sart.com/

Hope this helps.

[mom2michael]

We have 1 SANE nurse but anyone in our facility that is an RN can perform all the steps leading up to the actual physical exam. They can collect the evidence, clothing, etc...... We have put together an idiot proof guide to the SANE exam that is step by step including when it's time to call in the doctor to perform the remainder of the exam. It also tells you when it's time to call the police department to pick up the stuff. The longest part of the exam is the actual history and collection of the evidence.

We also have a FNP that can do our SANE exams if needed and we use her if the patient does not want a male doctor to do the exam.

Because of our low staffing in the ER already (we generally only staff 1 RN, 2 during 11-23) we have to call in another RN anyway if we happen to get a SANE exam. Generally speaking, we can't refuse to do the exam because we simply just too small to refuse for the patient's sake.

Only about 1 out of 25 actual SANE exams we do make it to court.......

[PedsER-RN]

We have SANE on call 24/7, but before we had them, the ER docs did the exams with one of us assisting.

[Altra]

We have 4 SANEs, but occasionally there is a situation where a non-SANE nurse ends up doing the exam.

I once refused to do the exam on a 12-year old. I have done only one exam so my proficiency would easily have been called into question in court. I had 3 other patients at the time, 1 on her way to circling the drain. And I felt the 12-year old deserved better than to be coaxed through the exam only to have it be worth nothing in court. Another SANE reluctantly agreed to come in.

[mamalle]

Our ER doctor does the WHOLE exam. I just hold the bags, seal them and fill out the cards..