Forensic Nursing Jobs
A different, and rather new, type of nursing is forensic nursing. A forensic nurse is a nurse with extra training in forensic evidence collection and criminal procedures. Most forensic nursing jobs start off in the emergency room to see what type of injury has occurred. They must learn to recognize different types of injuries very quickly, as well as piece together evidence in the case that the person is not giving the doctors everything they need to know. Criminal investigations are not the only forensic nursing jobs, they are also called upon to identify remains through a forensic process after major disasters. Another type of forensic nursing job includes providing nursing to sexually assaulted people, which falls under criminal investigations. The first national convention of forensic nurses came about in 1992. There are many different specialities in forensic nursing jobs, ranging from nursing in the emergency room to working as an evidence collecting trainer.
The forensic nursing profession is still a very new one. It started in 1992 with a national convention of sexual assault nurses. They coined the term forensic nurse and tried to promote the practice. It worked quite well, and soon after the convention, the International Association of Forensic Nurses was created. When forensic nursing was officially recognized in 1996 by the American Association of Nurses, the amount of forensic nursing jobs shot up. A forensic nurse may be employed by government agencies in a criminal investigation.
The most important thing a forensic nurse must learn to do is how to quickly assess a patient in the emergency room. This room is usually the first point of contact between the patient and forensic nurse. Being able to check a patient quickly is important because it allows a forensic nurse to gather some evidence. For instance, if a woman says she was in a car accident when her boyfriend was driving, but the wounds were on the left side of the face, then it stands to reason that she was not just in a car accident. If she was in the passenger seat, then the injuries would mostly be on the right side of the face. It is this type of evidence collection that a forensic nurse must gather.
There are many different specialties for forensic nursing jobs and not all of them are in criminal investigation. Most of time a forensic nurse works in the criminal investigation world, but there are certain types of natural deaths that may require forensic evidence collection to identify correctly. An example would be identifying the remains of somebody who died in a natural disaster such as a hurricane. All these jobs cover the same basic idea, but with different areas of focus.
Getting a job in forensic nursing means that a person should be able to collect forensic evidence. A forensic nurse must be able to examine a patient in the emergency room quickly. This is important, because sometimes a person may lie about his or her injuries as a criminal cover up. Most early forensic nursing jobs involved sexual assault nursing, but it has expanded to cover other types of criminal assault nursing.