Drug Takeback Day - The Drug Enforcement Administration and government, community, public health and law enforcement partners present a “Take-Back” initiative that seeks to prevent increased pill abuse and theft. The DEA will be collecting potentially dangerous expired, unused...
April Lecture of the Month
Category: Patient Safety, Quality and Risk Management
Sexual Assault
James M. Pedigo, M.D.
Disclosure: The author has no relationships with commercial interests related to the content of the presentation.
James M. Pedigo, M.D., is the medical director of the Joseph J. Peters Institute, Philadelphia, which evaluates and treats perpetrators and victims of sexual abuse. Here, Dr. Pedigo discusses the extent and importance of sexual abuse; the impediments it can cause; warning signs of sexual abuse in children, adolescents and adults; and local and federal laws relating to sexual offenses. He also reviews the legal reporting requirements.
This lecture and the post-test is worth 2.0 credit hours.
Dr. Pedigo covers the history of sexual abuse in the United States, especially the ‘false memory syndrome' in sexual abuse -- the belief that in some instances memories are placed in the mind of the victim and do not represent reality. Child sexual abuse is prevalent in the US, says the author, with approximately one third of girls and about one sixth of boys experiencing at least one instance of sexual abuse…and the perpetrators, he says, are generally people known to the child.
According to the United Nations August 2006 Report of the Independent Expert Study on Violence Against Children, an estimated 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence during 2002. In ‘Child Sexual Abuse: A Review of the Literature’ by the John Jay College research team, the US incidence shows that 27% of females and 16% of males disclose a history of childhood sexual abuse.
Despite this, says Dr. Pedigo, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that although child sexual abuse has been reported up to 80,000 times a year, the number of unreported instances is far greater. This, he says, is because children often feel responsible for the abuse and ashamed of their participation.
The author continues with a discussion of sexual abuse of adolescents, sexual abuse of adults, and sexual abuse by professionals, an issue recently highlighted by sexual abuse by clergy. But there is also healthcare professional sexual involvement with clients or patients. He notes that both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association specifically prohibited such involvement; but it wasn't until 20 years later in the 1990s that the American Medical Association followed suit.
Dr. Pedigo goes on to discuss prison rape, stalking, exhibitionism, incest, and voyeurism. He covers victim vulnerability in child sexual abuse and defines the types of children at increased risk. He provides a medical association definition of pedophilia, noting that many child abusers are not pedophiles.
The lecture concludes with a description of sexual abuse on the internet…and a review of the laws relating to sexual offenses and reporting requirements and confidentiality in sexual abuse. The author recommends that definitive treatment of sexual abuse should be left to clinicians specially trained in this issue. The lecture is accompanied by more than 50 slides.
To view this lecture, please click here.