Ohio State Medical Students Advocate
for Trauma Informed Care
December 7th, 2023
Charlotte Huot
The final seminar of the semester will take place on Friday via Zoom, focusing on unique struggles of deaf survivors of sexual violence, and featuring speakers from the nonprofit organization “Deaf World Against Violence Everywhere,” according to the webpage.
“I think anybody who’s going to be in some sort of service industry where you’re interacting with people, understanding the baggage people bring and the history people bring to an interpersonal interaction is so important to how you can make it a good interaction or a bad interaction,” Boulger said. “I think that’s really the point of trauma-informed care is not to cause any further harm and to potentially even start the healing process, like being informed and being compassionate and educated.”
Understanding impact of traumatic situations key to providing trauma-informed care
September 15th, 2023
Physicians trained in trauma-informed care know that patients carry some residue of trauma to their health care appointments. Whether it is physical, emotional, verbal, physical or sexual, they understand survivors need support and understanding from those around them. This includes everyone in the health care setting.
That is why the Advocates for Trauma-Informed Care at The Ohio State University have organized a Trauma-Informed Care Seminar Series to educate communities about the impact of trauma on clients, co-workers, friends and family. The organization provides resources to teach others to provide holistic healing, the kind that recognizes a patient’s entire situation. This healing can then lead to effective health care services that treat the whole patient.
“You make a safe place,” said Dr. Boulger. “And you say, I see you, I hear you, I know where you are coming from, and I am here.”
Dr. Boulger adds that training assists in being able to recognize people often experience many different types of traumas in their lives.
“It is really a time where you have an opportunity to make an impact in their lives,” said Dr. Quatman. “Sharing resources and connecting them with a care coordination team can address many other issues the team isn’t even yet aware of.”
Providers are at the center of care and effective training is integral in ensuring trauma survivors are not mistakenly re-traumatized by the community of care.
“Our job is to be present,” said Dr. Quatman. “If you can get resources, imagine the beautiful world you can create.”
Here's how 3 Ohio State students and a Strauss abuse survivor changed the medical school
August 7, 2023
Reposting from Columbus Dispatch Article
By 2021, through working with medical school professors and leaders, the trio was able to get many of the curriculum changes they were seeking to be implemented at Ohio State.
The changes include educating students about how common sexual assault is, an examination of cases that went wrong, an exploration of how differences in power affect doctor and patient relationships, and a role play session where medical students practice standing up to a physician who is accused of wrongdoing.
It also includes conversations with patients, such as Lander, who talk about how they sometimes feel retraumatized by medical professionals who don't believe them or who have little experience and training to treat sexual abuse survivors, Greenwald said.
"We like to keep survivor stories in our curriculum, and we think it's really important for students to hear from them so they can understand the impact that this could have," Greenwald said.
Although the three students were successful at implementing the curriculum updates at Ohio State, they aren't stopping there. The trio is pushing to get other medical schools to adopt the practices so that students at all of the nation's medical schools get the necessary training when it comes to sexual assault.
"This really was born out of this gap that we saw that we just wanted to fill," Mackey-Alfonso said. "It really was due to our own determination to do this that got it done."
'Not everyone's on board' even after #MeToo movement Although Daily, Greenwald and Mackey-Alfonso were able to make the changes, they ran into some resistance along the way.
Even after the #MeToo movement, the three said some students openly questioned the need for training on the subject. It was also clear, Daily said, that some students were still uncomfortable learning about sexual abuse.
It took a lot of time for most faculty and students to warm up to the idea of a curriculum that included sexual abuse training, Daily said "All three of us can still attest that not everybody's on board with this curriculum yet," Daily said. "Faculty has come around, but there are still students that will ask us: 'Why are we learning this?'"
Boulger says that even though encountering sexual assault victims is part of her daily clinical practice, she didn’t realize until collaborating with Daily, Greenwald and Mackey-Alfonso that this type of ready resource was a valuable tool for providers in all fields — not just the
emergency room.
In fact, she says, the idea for the curriculum, and later, the resource cards, began when the three approached Boulger with questions about how to speak with victims of sexual assault in the emergency department and how to address these concerns during the forensic
nursing exam basics.
“Their passion has had this amazing ripple effect,” Boulger says. “It’s so refreshing to witness
this compassion and passion from future physicians.”
Boulger now serves as faculty advisor for the group and has permission from several sexual assault patients who have agreed to speak with firstyear medical students.
Improving Learner and Provider Knowledge for Survivors of Sexual Assault
January 21, 2022
Reposting from OSU College of Medicine Article
Improving Learner and Provider Knowledge for Survivors of Sexual Assault
November 05, 2021
“Our job is to listen to, believe and care for the patient,” Greenwald, a second-year student in the MSTP, says. “And to ensure survivors are not re-traumatized by those trying to help.”
Their goal is to have a resource card clipped to every provider ID badge or in the pockets of providers across Ohio State. That way they are better equipped when a survivor of sexual assault comes to them for care. Having the resources on hand could influence the level of care and impact survivors’ overall recovery.
“Research shows that supportive and non-judgmental responses from clinicians empower sexual assault survivors to deliver an accurate medical history and pursue resources and follow-up care,” Daily, a sixth-year student in the MSTP and a fourth-year student in the Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, says.
The idea for the pocket-sized cards was born out of the many requests for resources they received from medical students after they created and began teaching a team-based learning module that provided evidence-based, whole-person care and support for survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence.
GET Resource cards for your organization
Message: ATIC.OSUCOM@gmail.com
Get In Touch
Email Address
ATIC.OSUCOM@gmail.com
