UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, February 14, 1994
5
Med Center holds conference on rape
Students hear how to help survivors
By Ashley Schultz Kansan staff writer
More than 50 medical students attended a four-hour conference Saturday that was the first of its kind for the University of Kansas Medical Center. The subject of the conference was rape trauma, an issue often neglected in the Med Center curriculum, said Rachel Vile, first-year medical student.
Vile, who has worked at rape crisis centers in Washington and Boston, and William Pfau, second-year medical student, organized the conference with money from the American Medical Student Association and the department of history and philosophy of medicine.
The conference was intended to teach medical students how to better help rape survivors, Vile said.
"As physicians, we are going to be dealing with survivors of sexual assault, and we want to learn about it in a seminar rather than on our first patient," Vile said.
Brenda Thomas, director of education services with the Kansas City area Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault, discussed the myths associated with sexual assault, phases of victim recovery, advice for health care professionals treating victims and the role of doctors as mandated reporters in cases of child sexual assault.
She also talked about the need for doctors to ask rape survivors the right questions.
"It's important to clarify that whatever they did — it is not their fault," Thomas said. "If they were drunk or if they were someplace they were not supposed to be, it is not their fault. Somebody decided to do this to them. It is not their fault."
Thomas said that women ages 13 to 24 years old were in the highest-risk group for rape and that 85 percent of rape victims knew their attackers.
"The only way that you and I, any of us, can protect ourselves totally from ever being a victim of sexual assault or abuse is to live on a deserted island in a plastic bubble all by yourself." Thomas said. "Because we can't control the actions of other people."
There are three types of rapists.
How to help
What you should do when someone you care about is raped:
- Be supportive.
- Don't pressure her to talk.
- See that she gets sensitive, concerned and competent medical attention if it happens.
- Don't tell her what she must or must
- Don't tell her what she must or must not do
- Be patient, and listen to her needs.
- Suggest she talk to someone trained to help victims deal with rape.
- Recognize your own limitations.
- Be gentle and sensitive.
Where to get help: Rape Victim-Survivor Service, 1419 Massachusetts St. 841-2345
Source: Metropolitan Organization KANSAN
To Counter Sequel Assault
Thomas said. About 50 percent fall into the category of power rapists, which includes acquaintance rapists. Thomas said that power rapists seek control, often without using a great deal of violence. A power rapist typically thinks that a woman does not know what she wants and that she will like it when she is shown.
About 45 percent of rapists are anger rapists who use violent, blitz-style attacks, Thomas said. The other 5 percent are sadistic or serial rapists who usually kill their victims.
Dennis Allen, director of Emergency Medicine at the Med Center, spoke briefly about problems in treating rape victims and about a doctor's four responsibilities to the patient: caring for their medical well-being, attending to psychological aspects, assuring some kind of follow-up and collecting appropriate forensic evidence.
A medical exam in an emergency room can last anywhere from one-and-a-half to six hours. Thomas said.
Pediatric cases of sexual assault outnumber adult cases at the Med Center's emergency room 2-1, Allen said. An average of two to three adult cases are handled each week.
Allen said he tried to make sure that a nurse experienced with rape trauma stayed with a rape victim throughout the hospital visit, playing a role similar to a patient's advocate.
The conference was concluded by a panel of four rape survivors who spoke about their own experiences at hospitals after their attacks.
Vile said she was working with administrators to integrate a two-hour seminar into first-year medical students' curriculum.
Jennie Zeiner/ KANSAN
Happy New Year!
Waving colorful ribbons in the Goddesses from the Moon dance was only part of the Chinese New Year celebration at the Lied Center. Dancing plays and food also helped to ring in the New Year, which is based on the traditional lunar calendar used in China. This year is the year of the dog.
Media coverage of minority community focus of panel
Bv Jennifer Freund
Kansan staff writer
LaTina Sullivan, Memphis, Tenn., freshman, told panel members of "Cultural Diversity and the News" at the Kansas Union Friday that she was not allowed on the Central High School paper because she was African-American.
The last step, Andrews said, was to take action.
Vernon Smith, assistant managing editor for the Dallas Morning News, concurred.
Sullivan said this unwritten rule kept her and other African-American students from contributing to the paper at her high school, which she said was 75 percent African-American.
Caesar Andrews, executive editor of the West Nyack, N.Y., *Rockland Journal-News*, said that minorities did not feel welcome in the media because of historical perceptions.
Panel members at the forum, sponsored by the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications, addressed Sullivan's concerns as well as other issues facing minorities and the media to an audience of about 75 people.
Andrews said that a newspaper first needed to have personnel who understood diversity, not just political correctness. Second, newspapers and staff have to make a commitment to diversity.
Smith said the News had taken steps to make contact with the minority
community, but he said he did not expect a friendly reception.
"You will have to go out and take your lumps," he said. "There's a lot of distrust out there over stuff done in the past."
Panelists also addressed the issue of the negative portrayals of minorities in particular, African-American males.
DeNeen Brown, reporter at the Washington Post, said that African-American violence was so bad in Washington, D.C., that a murdered African-American male wasn't news anymore but that the murder of a white man was. She said that despite accusations of sensationalism she felt obligated to cover violence and poverty in the African-American community.
the panelists said that crime and poverty needed to be covered but that minorities should be covered in a positive light as well.
The panel also discussed a political cartoon using the word "nigger" published in the Sacramento Bee.
Phil Garcia, state editor of the Bee, said that readers were so angered that the paper issued two apologies. He agreed that free speech was at issue, but he also said that the word might be considered an obscurity, which would not be covered by free speech.
Dorothy Posey, Kansas City, Kan. resident, said the panel raised interesting issues.
"I enjoyed the comments — those that were thought-provoking," she said.
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