Journal of emergency nursing : JEN : official publication of the Emergency Department Nurses Association
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This paper presents a study of prehospital care with particular focus on how ambulance personnel prepare themselves for their everyday assignments. ⋯ Our findings suggest that the outcomes of good prehospital care affect patient security. The seemingly time-consuming dialogue with the patient facilitates understanding and decision-making regarding the patient's medical needs, and it is comforting to the patient. The ambulance personnel need to be well prepared for this task and fully understand that the situation might differ considerably from the information provided by the EMD centers. All objective information is of great value in this care context, but ultimately it is the patient who provides reliable information about her/his own situation.
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Nurses who evaluate patients following sexual assault are often faced with the task of identifying genital injuries and providing legal testimony regarding the nature of the injuries. Following a 2000 Virginia State court decision, sexual assault nurse examiners have had to struggle to answer the questions, "Are the genital injuries consistent with the patient's history?" and "Are the genital injuries consistent with sexual assault?" ⋯ Currently, the presence or absence of genital injury should not be used to render an opinion regarding consent to sexual intercourse. Further research is necessary to determine if injury patterns can indeed distinguish consensual from nonconsensual sex.