Christiana Care Health System's Forensic Nurse Examiner Team | Allied Professional Award
Team Members: Anita Symonds; Erica Dempsey; Amy Drejka; Meghan Blomquist; Mary Kathleen Fillingame; Jennifer Henry; Amy Hensel; Donna Lougheed; Angela McNulty; Christi Mench; Beth Miller; Noemi Miranda; Jennifer Oldham; Kelly Green O'Shaughnessy; Christine Parks; Nicole Possenti; Amy Stier; Steaphine Taggart; Erin Vaughn; Gordon Reed MD
Newark, Delaware
Christiana Care Health System’s Forensic Nurse Examiner (FNE) Team consists of one medical director and 24 nurses. The team is located within a level-one trauma center emergency department and is present around the-clock. Team members provide physical and emotional care to victims of crime while collecting and preserving evidence.
In 2012, they provided forensic services to 2,026 patients. In 1996, the FNE Team first offered services to sexual assault victims. Over the years, the team has expanded their forensic services to patients experiencing elder/dependent adult abuse and neglect, child abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, strangulation, and major trauma, including pedestrians struck by motor vehicles, assaults, stabbings, fires, and victims of gunshot wounds.
The FNE Team expanded its education even further on gun shot wounds to include identification of wound characteristics. This includes identifying entrance and exit wounds as well as range of fire. This information was previously available only to police after an autopsy was performed. Now the police can have that valuable information immediately. When wounds and evidence are documented and appropriately collected, the victims’ injuries and associated evidence are preserved for the legal system to investigate immediately.
The FNE Team is trained to document injuries photographically, to recognize and collect valuable forensic evidence, and to testify as forensic experts. A large part of the team’s testimony occurs in Superior Court for sexual assault, major physical assault, and homicide cases in Delaware, as well as surrounding states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. In and attempt to facilitate the legal process, the FNE Team accepts requests for its nurses to testify in cases that relate to the forensic care provided to a victim, regardless of where the trial is taking place.
Many FNE Team members provide education in local nursing schools, local universities, nurse practitioner programs, legal nurse consulting agencies, and forensic science classes.
The FNE Team received the Emergency Nurses Association 2013 Team Award for its exceptional professional practice, innovation, leadership, and advocacy.