Welcome to season four of Down the Rabbit Hole! October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM), and today, October 11th, is Health Cares About Domestic Violence Day. Often healthcare workers are ill-equipped to deal with the nuances that come with treating survivors or dealing with domestic violence situations. So today, we’ve called upon Cathy Glenn to discuss the importance of educating medical professionals on standards of providing detailed care that survivors of abuse so desperately need. After previous experience as an emergency trauma nurse, Cathy is now the Injury Prevention Trauma Outreach Coordinator at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Dallas. Her passion extends to partnering on issues relating to family violence and its intersection with healthcare. She explains why it’s so important for healthcare workers to beef up their knowledge on domestic violence, why she only learned about domestic violence in the ER after already graduating from nursing school, and how the opportunities for violence prevention and intervention in healthcare extend far beyond the emergency room and trauma unit. We also discuss some red flags for telling when someone needs help from an abusive partner, how to extend healthcare services for survivors past their initial treatment date, how to make the ER safe for medical staff, and other ways that healthcare professionals can get involved in issues of domestic violence away from the hospital. We hope you enjoy this fall-inspired, pumpkin-flavored, information-packed season four opener! 

For more information about Health Cares About Domestic Violence Day, check out Futures Without Violence's Action Kit.

Also check out IPVhealth.org to learn more about cultivating partnerships between advocates and healthcare professionals.

If you have any questions about this episode or if you are a health care provider looking for family violence training or collaboration opportunities, please email us at [email protected].