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 Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE)Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) are specially trained registered nurses who are on call to specified emergency departments, medical clinics, community agencies, or independent SANE facilities. There are seven SANEs for the Ogeechee Judicial Circuit, four of whom are currently employed full-time at Georgia Southern's Health Services Center. SANEs typically work as a part of a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART). The team, which can vary greatly in makeup and which coordinates its activities in a variety of ways, is usually composed of the rape crisis advocate, law enforcement, prosecutors and the SANE. The police or medical facility pages the SANE whenever a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault victim reports to the police or comes to the medical facility within 72 hours. The SANE will likely be on call to a hospital, a clinic or a free standing facility. When a victim arrives reporting a rape or attempted rape, the SANE will be paged by the hospital triage staff and come in to complete a medical examination of the rape victim. The usual response time is one hour. This examination typically has five essential components:
Procedure for a Sexual Assault ExaminationWhen the SANE arrives she will begin by completing a brief medical interview in order to determine where to examine the victim for evidence and potential injuries. She will then collect any clothing that may contain potential evidence as well as complete the medical legal examination. If there was a vaginal assault she will complete a vaginal speculum examination and when a colposcope is available she will take pictures of genital injuries with the colposcope. The colposcope magnifies injuries for better visualization and documentation. Since this is a very expensive piece of equipment, not all SANE programs have it available at every examination site. Since it is a relatively large and fragile piece of equipment, SANE programs with multiple examination sites cannot transport one colposcope to other sites, but need a colposcope at each site. Good exams can be completed without a colposcope. Once the medical legal evidentiary exam is completed, the SANE will refer the victim back to the Emergency Department medical staff for care if there are any injuries requiring treatment. If your examination is completed in a non-traditional hospital setting, you would then to transferred to the hospital emergency room. The medical treatment is always delayed when non-life threatening injuries have occurred so that evidence that may otherwise be lost can be collected first. If there are no injuries requiring additional treatment, the client will be discharged by the SANE. When a police report has been made, the police may be called to provide her safe transportation home, to collect the evidence, or to complete their interview with the victim if necessary. When an advocate is present in the emergency department, in addition to providing crisis intervention, she will most likely assist with arranging transportation home for the victim or finding safe housing. If the sexual assault victim desires to continue legal proceedings against the assailant, the SANE nurse will be present in the courtroom to testify as to the evidence collected in the rape kit packet. In 1972, the first SANE program was organized in Memphis, Tennessee. The state of Minnesota had their first SANE program one year later, in 1977. The first SANE programs were developed by medical professionals as a result of this recognized need for better care for sexual assault victims in the emergency room. Today, many states have the SANE program within the counties of that state. These SANE programs were developed within the medical setting to provide timely response by specially trained nurses with an expertise in forensic evidence collection. Please don't hesitate to contact the University Police Department at 912.478.5234 and request contact with the on-call SANE provider.
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Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) |