Emergency Department Medical Evidence Collection Following Sexual Assault

The emergency department (ED) is the health care setting where victims of violence will most likely first seek medical treatment. ED medical evidence collection following sexual assault can be critical to the successful prosecution of the perpetrator.¹ However, sexual assault medical evidence collection is a multistep exam that is a difficult and time-consuming process. Although all emergency medicine residency training programs teach sexual assault medical evidence collection, some residents’ skills and knowledge in this area may be limited.² Emergency physicians who work in departments without sexual assault nursing examiner programs may need to follow written instructions to properly complete the procedure (Figure 1). Using human models and high-fidelity mannequins, we created a 4-minute video (see Video Clip S1, available as supporting information in the online version of this paper) that demonstrates the main steps in performing a sexual assault medical evidence collection kit. We made this video available on our departmental Web site to augment our usual resident training as well as to provide an easy-to-use, real-time clinical reference for all health care providers at our institution.

Figure 1.  Medical collection.