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ABC News
Three-quarters of all workplace assaults happen to healthcare workers, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And right now, unlike other professions, there is no federal law requiring prevention, reporting, or action if a health care worker is assaulted while on the job.
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Be part of this important event and share your experience with your colleagues! Abstracts will be accepted for three categories: 30-minute research/evidence-based practice sessions, 90-minute concurrent sessions, and poster sessions. Due Feb. 12, 2020. Conference tracks, session lengths, and additional details are online.
2020 is the year of the nurse. Make it your year to become certified! Display your expertise. Grow your career potential. Boost your CV/resume. Fortify your credibility when testifying. Apply by Feb. 6 to sit for the April exam.
Are you interested in helping to shape our September Conference? The Conference Planning Committee is seeking IAFN members to assist in reviewing abstracts. Reviews start Feb. 19 and finish by March 5.
Applications are currently being accepted for the IAFN Research Awards for FY 2020. IAFN members are eligible and the deadline is February 15, 2020. Key research focus areas include research exploring health outcomes, including cost of care, of victims of violence when forensic nurses are involved in their care and research to guide clinical care of patients affected by violence.
Make your plans now to join us for our free, members-only Forensic Nursing Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C. Meet with members of Congress to advocate for issues that impact forensic nursing. Training is provided.

The Hill
President Trump
signed a bill Dec. 30, 2019 to help eliminate the number of rape kits that need testing and are currently stalled in a backlog.
The legislation will provide funding from the Department of Justice to help local governments get through the backlog of untested rape kits. Currently, there are more than 100,000 untested rape kits across the U.S., according to ABC News.
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The Hill
Child abuse and neglect fatalities are preventable, not inevitable. This was the bold vision of the federal Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities in its report in March 2016, reimagining a 21st-century child welfare system.
Commissioners called for a public health approach to transforming child welfare systems guided by more significant leadership and accountability, decisions grounded in better data and research, and a multidisciplinary approach to ensuring child safety.
Based on the commission’s findings, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Victims of Crime announced earlier in 2019 a demonstration initiative to develop multidisciplinary strategies to address severe or near-death injuries as a result of child abuse or neglect.
Through a competitive grant process, they selected five sites that will receive federal technical assistance for three years.
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NBC News
Early one morning in April, a homeless woman sleeping in an abandoned house in Louisville, Kentucky, was jolted awake by a stranger who pulled her bedding over her head and raped her, according to police.
The 29-year-old woman was taken to the University of Louisville Hospital, where nurses examined her for traces of DNA that could identify her assailant.
Such answers in rape cases typically take months, and sometimes more than a year — delays that can be traumatic for victims and diminish the odds of anyone getting prosecuted.
But the alleged attack occurred while the Kentucky State Police laboratory was evaluating a new “rapid DNA” instrument, which is marketed as a way to identify suspected rapists in hours, while victims are still being treated.
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MedPage Today
In February 2019, MedPage Today launched a #MeToo Medicine series, which examined how entrenched hierarchies and a climate of intimidation, retaliation, and fear discourage targets from reporting sexual harassment. In this follow-up, we take a new look at the situation.
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Case Western Reserve University via PhysOrg
Most existing research about sexual offenders is limited because offenders must either be caught or self-disclose their crimes, said Rachel Lovell, research assistant professor at the university's Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.
"New data on undetected sexual offenders—those who were never prosecuted for their crimes—connected to newly tested rape kits tells us that not only is repeated sexual offending more common than previously expected, but also about all the other crimes they commit," she said.
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The Dallas Morning News
At John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, one patient — a woman who fell through the cracks during her visits to the ER there and other health care organizations across Dallas-Fort Worth — spurred staff members to overhaul the hospital’s domestic-violence screenings.
Mary Ann Contreras, the hospital’s violence and injury prevention manager, came across the woman’s medical records as she checked to see whether any JPS patients were on a list of people who had been killed by their partners.
The woman had visited JPS three times in a matter of weeks. Once, she had a gash on her head, and later, a broken leg. The staff didn’t screen her for signs of domestic violence, Contreras said.
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The Atlantic
In September 1988, a man looking for cypress wood discovered a body in the marshy forests of Florida. The body was too decomposed to be recognizable, but police made note of what they could: a denim skirt, manicured nails, long dyed-blond hair, breast implants. A prominent forensic anthropologist noticed pitting in the pelvic bones, which he attributed to hormonal changes from childbirth. He proclaimed her a woman—a mother, in fact, who had likely given birth more than once. She became known as “Julie Doe.”
In 2015, however, new DNA tests revealed that she actually had XY chromosomes. Julie Doe was a transgender woman. The pitting in her pelvic bones was likely the result of hormone therapy, rather than childbirth. Her real name, however, remains unknown.
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CNN
Teaching young boys to respect their female peers goes a long way — it may even help prevent violent behaviors, one study reports.
The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, was led by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.
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