Nurses who work with the police? Canada

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Hello,

I'm a nursing student who is really interested in the types of nursing that might relate to police work, specifically in Canada. I'm wondering if anyone out there who has a job that involves working closely with the police could tell me about their job, what it involves, and what sort of training/experience they had prior to getting this job? I'm not really sure what sort of job opportunities there might be in this sort of area. I'd really appreciate it! Thank you!

Not sure if this is the right place for this, sorry! I posted it on the Canadian forum as well, but was not sure where I would be most likley to get responses.

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Specializes in Emergency, Internal Medicine, Sports Med.

I went to school & work in Canada, but I live in WA and am a nurse there too.

At my hospital in the lower mainland, we have a forensics nurse/SANE. Same specialty as what you read about here. I work in Emerg in a different area, but basically these nurses have their own equipment that is sealed (no DNA on anything) and handle all sexual assaults, etc from triage in. These nurses are also expert witnesses in court.

As far as anything non-sexual (like gang violence etc) we (emerg nurses) often know a lot of the RCMP who bring people in. They have protocols that they have to stay with victims/suspects etc. So in a sense we work along side them- but in terms of actual "working" together- not so much.

Other then that, there's correctional facilities.

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How about nurses who are the police?

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Good grief! We could have only wished for a nurse/police officer

like ImThatGuy in our catchment area. :cool:

In the US, many nurses on a psychiatric crisis team work closely with the police.

Often the nurses are called to the police station to assess individuals

who have mental health issues. In our setting, if it is determined

that the individual needs hospitalization (and there are no charges pending),

the nurse might accompany the patient with the police to the state hospital.

Not the same as forensic, but it sure kept our team busy!

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Well, I'm in nursing school at the moment, have worked as a paramedic so I'm not new to healthcare or emergency medical problems, and I am the police. That said, when we have mental problems with people we go dump them off at the hospital, lol. We don't want them in our house. ;)

Surprisingly, psych is becoming an appealing area for me. I wouldn't have expected that, but after going through a psych nursing course it occurred to me that "yeah, I'm already intimately familiar with all of these typs of people." Had a few try to kill me even, lol, so the "dangers" of working with them are just another day in the neighborhood.

As far as forensics goes then chat away.

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