The U.S. Department of Justice honored Christiana Care Health System’s Forensic Nurse Examiner (FNE) program for providing emergency care to thousands of crime victims and forensic expertise at trials across the country, during the National Crime Victims’ Rights Service Awards ceremony.
Consisting of one medical director and 24 nurses, the team provides 24 hour services within a level-one trauma center. The team has provided services to sexual assault victims since 1996, and expanded their forensic expertise to include elder, dependent adult and child abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, strangulation and major trauma, involving accidents, assaults, stabbings or gunshot wounds.
In 2013, they provided forensic services to 1,963 forensic patients. The FNE Team is trained to document and identify inflicted injuries, photograph the forensic evidence and testify as forensic experts. and direction of fire, provides information to investigators within minutes of a victim’s arrival.
The majority of the team’s expert testimony occurs in the Delaware courts, but they have testified in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland courts as well.
The team honors subpoenas regardless of the location. Many FNE members provide education in local nursing schools, local universities, nurse practitioner programs, legal nurse consulting and forensic sciences classes.
