Sane

[ikatiana21]

I just started nursing in August and I've been looking around at different areas that interest me. So far, this is the area I really want to go into. I was a psych major until I switched to nursing and I was going to go into counseling for for battered women, self esteem issues, etc; Im very passionate about these sort of things. I had also looked into going into the police academy and dealing w/ sex crimes and such; again, advocating for the women.

I have two questions: 1) I've heard that forensics nursing is extremely hard to get into, bc the demand is little to none, how true is this?

2) Would finishing out my psych degree (or maybe social work, the two plans are almost identical) help me at all?

The one site I looked at said you needed five years experience to become a SANE, so I figured I might as well be gathering classes/knowledge under my belt during those years!

[pjsleepy, BSN]

SANE classes are offered all over the country, but you need to take the class in the state you will be practicing in. The class itself is only about a week long, and then your preceptored experience depends on the facilities guidlines where you will be practicing. I don't think it's difficult to get into SANE nursing, but yes, it is generally more difficult to get into other aspects of forensic nursing (ie. death investigation, trauma center forensic nurse, etc.) The majority of SANE nurses are or have been ER nurses, so you might want to try to get some ER exposure (ER tech, etc) while you are in college. I only had 2 years nursing experience when I started doing SANE, but I'm sure qualifications are different from place to place. I don't think that finishing your psych or social work degree would give you an advantage, but do it if you want to!!! I hope this helps.