DIANA FAUGNO: I am a forensic nurse. It is some days like being in the middle of a war zone. These patients are scared.
You're safe here with us, and we'll be sure...
They're upset.
...that you're well taken care of.
It's always about the patient. It's not about what I want, it's what they want.
If there's anything that I do that you don't want me to do, just say stop and I will.
I have examined over 3,000 adolescent/adults and seen over 6,000 children since 1986. If we will just listen and observe, we can pick up on a lot of things.
WOMAN: He just wouldn't stop, so I asked him to leave.
DIANA FAUGNO: I have no control over what happens to our cases. What I did have control over was that the patient had a positive experience with their exams.
I’m a co-author on workbooks. The "Color Atlas of Sexual Assault" was the first book in the country to be printed of things to consider when doing a sexual assault exam.
Okay, so I'm going to swab the inside of your cheek. This is your DNA. So, go ahead, open up your mouth.
I was involved with a program called RADS.
Back and forth, then I'm going to flip them.
Rapid Analysis Diagnostics. What it did was allow better input--accurate input--from the nurse doing the exam. Law enforcement gets their reports faster, so we don't end up with another backlog.
I've been on the stand probably close to 200 times. The role of the forensic nurse in the courtroom is basically to educate that jury.
I have so many hopes and dreams. Probably the biggest one is that there's enough forensic nurses to take care of these patients in the communities that they come from. So, trauma-informed care, because it's all about her, or him, not about me.
