Dr. Sandie Morgan and Dave Stachowiak are joined by Heidi Olson, a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program Manager at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. Heidi has a wide range of experience in pediatric and forensic nursing and her role includes performing forensic exams on children who have been victims of sexual assault, communicating with law enforcement and child protective services, and serving as an expert witness in criminal trials.

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Transcript

Dave [00:00:00] Hi, everyone, a quick disclaimer before this episode. As always, our content is serious and difficult. This episode is particularly challenging as we are talking about children who have been victims of sexual assault. This, as a result, may not be a good carpool episode as colleagues may experience being triggered and may not be able to ask to turn it off for a bit. It’s also not a good episode if you have kids or youth with you without an adult nearby to stop or explain and answer questions. Nevertheless, this is important content and you’re listening to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast. This is episode number 216 – Amy Looks like Everybody Else, Wisdom from a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner.

Production Credits [00:00:42] Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Dave [00:01:03] Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast. My name is Dave Stachowiak.

Sandie [00:01:08] And my name is Sandie Morgan.

Dave [00:01:10] And this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in Ending Human Trafficking. Sandie, as I mentioned in the introduction here, a difficult topic today, of course, as we get into this and yet an important topic for us to all know more about. And so, I’m glad we get to speak to someone today who’s really an expert in this area that’ll help us to discover even more.

Sandie [00:01:35] So, we have with us today Heidi Olson, a registered nurse who is a specialist as a sexual assault nurse examiner, and she’s the program manager at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. And her wide range of experience in pediatric and forensic nursing in her role includes performing forensic exams on children who have been victims of sexual assault. She communicates with law enforcement, child protective services, and serves as an expert witness in criminal trials. She has performed or reviewed over twelve hundred child sexual abuse exams in the last two years and has presented over 200 times about recognizing human trafficking, child on child sexual assault, pornography, and sexual violence trends. Heidi, I don’t know if welcoming you to the show is the appropriate next statement, but your work is really difficult and I am just in awe of your resilience. And meeting you in person, you are just the right person for this job. So, welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking podcast.

Heidi [00:02:54] Thank you so much for having me. It’s such an honor and just such a topic that I feel really passionate about. So, I’m really excited to be here.

Sandie [00:03:03] Alright. Well, first, you know, I’m a pediatric nurse background as well, although not with your level of specific experience. And I remember the first time I heard the term SANE. nurse and I thought I’m not so sure that’s very sane. So, do you want to, I know you’ve heard that like a thousand times, but for our listeners, can you give us a better idea of what a SANE. nurse does?

Heidi [00:03:28] Absolutely, SANE is an acronym for sexual assault nurse examiner and it’s a very unique type of nurse, and SANE. nurses were basically born out of a need that when sexual assault victims had been sexually assaulted, there’s forensic evidence that can be collected off of their bodies, but also they may have injuries or specific needs at that moment. So, victims who are presenting to ER, nobody knew how to collect evidence, they weren’t sure what to do with these victims, didn’t understand trauma. And so it just ended up being a really traumatic experience for everybody involved. So, SANE. nurses were born out of this need of we need specific medical people who understand forensic evidence, who understand what injuries look for, who understand trauma, and don’t make this more traumatizing for someone who’s just experienced something awful. So, essentially, our nurses were specific, the ones I worked with, we are specifically trained to see children. So, 0 through 18, and when a child has been sexually assaulted and comes into our health care system, one of our nurses will see them. So, they’re looking for DNA on a kid’s body, which would be skin cells, hair cells, saliva, semen, wherever we think we can find it on the child, which is typically their genitals if it’s been a sexual assault. And then we look for injuries on their bodies. Sometimes we’ll see, you know, signs of strangulation or other physical injuries. And then we look obviously for genital injuries as well. And then we make sure that they have resources for therapy. You know, a safe place to go. We make all the appropriate reports to the hotline and then occasionally we get subpoenaed to testify in court as well, since we kind of helped start the beginning of the criminal justice process. So, in a nutshell, that’s what SANE. nurses do for kids, and then there are adults SANE. nurses as well.

Sandie