Vanderbilt University School of Nursing recently received a $1.43 million award from the US Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to develop and implement a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) education program for emergency nurse practitioner (ENP) students. The program is expected to increase the number of SANE-trained advanced practice registered nurses practicing in emergency departments and rural or underserved communities across the country.
Mavis Schorn, PhD, FACNM, the grant’s principal investigator, tells Nursing.Vanderbilt.edu, “Currently, there are just over 800 sites in the country that provide SANE services, yet nationally, one in six women and one in 33 men will experience an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. Sexual assault nurse examiners have specialized education to conduct forensic examinations that have been shown to provide better physical and mental health care for assault survivors, deliver better evidence collection and support higher prosecution rates. Most important, SANEs treat patients holistically with compassionate and comprehensive care that takes into account the patient’s current acute care needs and the possible long-term effects of sexual assault.”
ENPs are positioned in emergency departments and are often the first to discover a patient who has been sexually assaulted. Their education and experience allows them to provide primary, episodic, and critical care of males and females of all ages.
Vanderbilt will offer SANE education to students in the Emergency Nurse Practitioner Post-Master’s Certificate program. Students in the program are current family nurse practitioners who want to become ENPs, and they will complete SANE training and their ENP education simultaneously with an option to select adult/adolescent and/or pediatric/adolescent SANE training.
The initiative is supported by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Our Kids, Nashville’s Sexual Assault Center, and EmCare. To learn more about Vanderbilt Nursing’s $1.43 million HRSA grant to develop sexual assault nurse examiner education, visit here.
- Nationwide Shortage of Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Prompts Alternative Solutions from States - March 30, 2020
- Coldiron Senior Nurse Executive Fellowship Program Established to Enhance Development of Senior Nurse Executives - March 27, 2020
- Nurse of the Week: UW-Madison Nursing Student Marcela Hanson Crowdsources Childcare Help For Local Healthcare Workers During COVID-19 Pandemic - March 25, 2020