Angelite Nurses

By PATRICIA R. OLSEN

WHEN it comes to solving crimes, images of detectives, police officers and scientists often come to mind. But nurses, too, play a critical role in the criminal justice system, and they can make good money doing so. 

Nurses with forensic training may gather data at accident sites and in other situations where crimes may have occurred or medical evidence needs to be collected. They may also testify in court cases and help lawyers understand medical records — often for medical malpractice cases.

Some nurses with this training start a business as legal nurse consultants, and still others become coroners, completing work like that of medical examiners, who hold doctor of medicine degrees. Some continue their regular nursing work and do forensic work part time.

Holly Bedgio has run a business as a legal nurse consultant for 10 years. In addition to her job as director of clinical operations and risk management for Matrix Home Care in West Palm Beach, Fla., she works with a dozen law firms around the country, helping lawyers decide whether to take a case, for example, or identifying who shares the blame in a wrongful death suit. 

“I love that no two cases are alike,” Ms. Bedgio said. The lawyers often don’t brief her before she reads case files so as not to influence her findings. “It’s like reading a mystery novel. You have to put the pieces of the puzzle together to solve the case,” she said.

As coroner for Charleston County in South Carolina, Rae Wooten draws on 30 years of experience and training as a nurse. Her forensics skills include how to identify evidence in a death investigation as well as how to interview witnesses and suspects.

“I’m a fact-finder. I investigate deaths, including homicides, fatalities from traffic accidents, those that are fire-related, and those that initially are unexplained, unexpected or suspicious,” Ms. Wooten said. She assesses the state of the body, takes photos, orders autopsies, and works with law enforcement to determine the cause of death. 

Nurses have long performed various forensic services, but over the years the skills have become codified under the umbrella of forensic nursing. 

“You’ll hear the title ‘forensic nurse,’ but that can be misleading, as if it covers one area,” said Julie Rosof-Williams, course coordinator for the forensic nursing program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “To identify someone as a forensic nurse is not comparable to saying, for example, that someone is a pediatric nurse, which indicates the person works solely with children.” 

The field has drawn interest from nurses at several levels, including licensed practical nurses, registered nurses and nurse practitioners. As a result, in the last decade or so masters and doctoral degree programs have proliferated to provide training.

For example, in 2004 the School of Nursing at Vanderbilt University began offering forensic nursing as a minor in the masters of nursing program. Several private educational providers also offer forensic nursing courses. 

Carey Goryl, executive director of the International Association of Forensic Nurses, says that it is important to research any educational provider. “Potential employers and even some state nursing licensing boards may not recognize all the forensic courses that are available,” Ms. Goryl said. “Nurses who have a particular employer in mind should contact them first and find out which educational provider is acceptable for that forensic program.” 

The salaries for nurses with this training vary widely, said Ms. Rosof-Williams, depending on specialty, local market rates, degree and experience. 

As president of the South Florida chapter of the American Association of Legal Nurse Consultants, Ms. Bedgio is familiar with salaries in her specialty. It’s not uncommon for a legal nurse consultant working full-time to make six figures, but it takes a while to get started, she said. In her experience, a legal nurse consultant can make between $100 and $150 an hour.

Certification can also be an issue. “A certificate program can give a general background, but if nurses want to practice with a specific population, such as sexual assault patients, they need specialized training, such as provided by a 40-hour sexual assault nurse examiner, or SANE, course,” Ms. Goryl said. 

The forensic nursing association offers two board certifications for sexual assault nurse examiners, for nurses who want to work either with children, or adolescents and adults. The organization has also teamed with the American Nurses Credentialing Center, a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association, to provide additional credentials. 

MS. ROSOF-WILLIAMS also works at Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine and at Our Kids Center, a clinic of Metropolitan Nashville General Hospital. She serves as a sexual assault nurse examiner at the center, supporting and collecting evidence from children who may have been sexually assaulted. As part of her job, she has also testified in court cases involving those children. 

Ms. Rosof-Williams describes her specialty with enthusiasm. “As a sexual assault nurse examiner, I have the opportunity to get involved in direct patient care and help people heal from some of the worst situations ever,” she said. “Not only do I get the reward of helping patients, I also get rewarded when other health care providers say: ‘Please do this. You’re the expert.’ And I get the intellectual excitement of helping people outside the health care system do their job. I like the idea of serving social justice, where the guilty go to jail and the innocent go free.”

By EITHNE DONNELLAN 

IRISH PATIENTS will have to bring a relative with them into hospital to look after them in a few years' time "like they do in Ethiopia", unless the Government implements a new report that will see graduate nurses retained in the healthcare system, the annual conference of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) was told yesterday. 

Annette Kennedy, director of professional development with the INO, said the independent report from the Commission on Nursing Hours that looked at how a 35-hour week could be delivered for nurses recommended two nursing graduates on reduced salaries be employed to replace each retiring nurse. 

In this way she said all nurses could get a shorter working week, which they have been campaigning for since they took industrial action in 2007; young nurses would get experience; and over 1,000 replacement nursing jobs would be created every year at a time when jobs rather than more people on the dole were needed. 

She added that the report, which was recently submitted to Minister for Health Mary Harney, also pointed to how more efficient use could be made of nurses' time. At present nurses, she said, spend 20 per cent of their time undertaking associated duties like chasing equipment and cleaning. She also pointed out that many patients were spending too long in hospital before operations, which was also an inefficient use of resources. 

She pointed to the ageing profile of nurses, saying 50 per cent of all community nurses were over 50 and in general services the vast majority of nurses were over 40. "If we can't bring in new graduates . . . then we will be in trouble," she said. 

Ms Harney, in her address to delegates, said the report was "very innovative" and gave "a lot of food for thought". She will be discussing it with the HSE, but ultimately it would have to be approved by Government. 

Meanwhile, delegates also heard that about 22 per cent of hospitals and healthcare settings have still not reduced nurses' hours from 39 hours a week to 37.5 hours a week as they were required to do from June 1st, 2008. 

The INO is meeting the National Implementation Body on this issue next week and will insist that hours are reduced in all settings and that nurses who haven't yet benefited from the reduction in their hours be compensated retrospectively by pay or time in lieu. 

Originally published by EITHNE DONNELLAN. 

(c) 2009 Irish Times. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

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A jury found a former Pima County Jail nurse not guilty Friday on all 10 felony sex abuse and unlawful sexual contact charges in what his defense attorney characterized as a case of "he said, she said." 

In closing arguments, Thomas S. Hartzell told jurors the accusations came from felons - among them a prostitute, a bad-check writer and a woman who lied to police about her identity - who conspired to accuse Christopher Erin Johnston, 29, of sex crimes. 

The motive, he said, was revenge because an inmate felt "violated" after Johnston performed an EKG exam. 

The exam requires attaching adhesive pads to the bare chest so that electrode leads can be attached in the study of heart rhythm. 

Ex-jail inmate Nancy Rostenhausler testified she asked for a medical visit in the jail because she was having chest pains. 

Johnston administered an EKG. He told detectives he may have touched her breasts while attaching the pads but the touching was inadvertent. 

Rostenhausler testified that she complained to her sister, who was also incarcerated at the jail. She said she was upset that Johnston saw her bare breasts and touched them, she testified. 

A juror asked if that was her first EKG and she said it was. 

Hartzell said the sister spoke to other inmates and had them "make accusations of unlawful sexual contact against Johnston, a registered nurse. 

The alleged incidents took place in July and August 2007. 

Johnston is no longer employed at the jail and is no longer registered with the Arizona State Board of Nursing. 

One alleged victim, Robyn Sanchez, jailed on a prostitution charge, said Johnston asked her if she "gave good (a sex act)." 

She also testified he suggested they meet in a bathroom at Wal-Mart after she got out. 

Hartzell called the accusers "very criminal women." He told the jury: "It's not against the law to say, 'Do you give good (sex act),' or 'Meet me at Wal-Mart.' " 

Johnston, who did not testify, told detectives his "sarcastic sense of humor" was misinterpreted and that he said "those things just to entertain myself." 

Prosecutor Shawn Jensvold said the illegal acts did occur and that the inmates "deserve to be treated like women, not like cattle, not like property, with respect."