ERNURSELAX

I'm a full time ER nurse, and we have 6 SANEs in our ER who are usually either working or we rotate "on call" time. I think you absolutely must have a good degree of direct patient care experience, and also ER experience because Sexual and Physical assault victims are Trauma patients. You must be competent to assess for all kinds of traumatic injuries so you know when you must consult with your ER doc for further trauma workup. Some patients/victims are so battered that they need to be physically stabilized before a SANE can even do the pelvic exam for DNA collection. On-line courses should only be a adjunct to actual clinical experience.

All the scenarios of people (men, women, and children) being sexually assaulted are extremely disturbing. I don't know that any of us SANEs really want to relive these stories even by retelling them. But, the thing that bothers me the most is seeing the injuries, especially anal bruising and swelling after someone has been rectally assaulted. We use colposcopy to get good photodocumentation of injuries.

I've been a SANE nurse since 2001. I'm glad to see people interested in this area of expertise. You have to find something about it that you love and feel passionate about, because it is the hardest part of my job as an ER nurse. I work full time as an ER staff nurse. I do take some call time as well (we have 6 SANEs and rotate call). When I am working, I am usually the only SANE nurse on, so I take those cases. Each SANE case takes me 3-4 hours of 1:1 time with my patient, plus another 30-45 minutes to secure the evidence and finish all documentation. The stories of assault that they tell me are extremely disturbing most of the time, and if I have 2 in a row I often have a difficult time dealing with it. I remind myself often why I'm doing this job. Because most staff nurses and doctors do not want to deal with it... If it's not a challenge, I guess it's not worth my time. And I know I can remain objective and collect the proper evidence. I also help the victims speak to police when they are often scared and feel like no one believes them.