{"id":8577,"date":"2016-03-08T11:00:20","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T16:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/?p=8577"},"modified":"2020-10-29T13:59:18","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T17:59:18","slug":"change-is-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/2016\/03\/08\/change-is-possible\/","title":{"rendered":"Change is Possible"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is the last in a series<\/a> exploring the history of nursing and domestic violence from the guest blogger Catherine Jacquet<\/a>, Assistant Professor of History and Women\u2019s and Gender Studies at Louisiana State University and guest curator of NLM’s exhibition <\/em>Confronting Violence: Improving Women\u2019s Lives<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists define for member physicians \u201cThe Battered Woman<\/a>,\u201d 1989
Courtesy American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By the early 1990s, change was on the horizon. Several of the major professional medical organizations recognized domestic violence as a significant health issue and urged their constituencies to take action\u2014this reinforced over a decade of advocacy and activism by nurses and their allies. In January 1989, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) announced a campaign to combat domestic violence. With Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, former ACOG president Dr. Luella Klein held a press conference declaring that, \u201cviolence against women is not tolerable in our society.\u201d Klein announced that all 27,000 members of the ACOG would be receiving information \u201cthat will equip them to detect when one of their patients is the victim of battering.\u201d This could make a significant difference in the lives of thousands of women. \u201cBecause ob\/gyns are the health professionals who care for many women,\u201d Klein continued, \u201cthey play a vital role in at least being in a position to detect when a woman may be the victim of abuse.\u201d That same month the ACOG released a technical bulletin titled \u201cThe Battered Woman<\/a>,\u201d which outlined the definition, incidence, and public health impact along with the importance of identifying abuse victims and methods for intervention.<\/p>\n

Three years later, in January 1992, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) followed suit and required that all accredited hospitals implement policies and procedures to identify, treat, and refer victims of abuse. This requirement included an educational component in domestic violence, elder abuse, and child abuse for all hospital staff.<\/p>\n

\"First<\/a>
\u201cAmerican Medical Association Diagnostic and Treatment Guidelines on Domestic Violence<\/a>,\u201d Archives of Family Medicine<\/em>, 1992
Courtesy National Library of Medicine<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Of particular significance, the American Medical Association issued “Diagnostic and Treatment Guidelines on Domestic Violence<\/a>” in September 1992. Prepared by pioneer reformers including Anne Flitcraft, MD, Susan Hadley, MPH, and Carole Warshaw, MD (none of whom were members of the AMA), these guidelines marked a critical turning point in the history of medicine and domestic violence. Recalling the publication of the guidelines, Anne Flitcraft<\/a> explained in an interview, it gave \u201cthe imprimatur of real medicine\u2026 this says violence against women, domestic violence, is real<\/em> medicine.\u201d In addition, both the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs and the Council on Scientific Affairs of the AMA published reports on violence against women in the June 1992 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/em> (JAMA). The Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs stated that physicians had an ethical obligation to intervene in cases of domestic violence and the Council on Scientific Affairs issued policy recommendations which included undertaking a campaign to educate the healthcare community on violence against women and training physicians to identify, validate, and refer victims of violence to the appropriate resources. These JAMA publications marked a sea change from 14 years prior when a 1978 article in the same journal reported that the discussion of spouse abuse in the medical literature was rare. After over a decade of advocacy and education, nurses, physicians, social workers, public health officials and other reformers within the healthcare system had made a significant impact in the identification and treatment of victims of domestic violence.<\/p>\n

By 1992, Jacquelyn Campbell could write<\/a> with confidence, \u201cNo one doubts any more that violence is a serious health problem. No one doubts that the health care system must become involved in decreasing violence.\u201d Nurses played a critical role in this transition. As they came to consciousness about the issues facing battered women, nurses advocated, educated, and organized nationally. In various capacities, nurses sought to both alleviate injury and ultimately prevent violence against women. Their impact was significant. Following 15 years of working and education on the issue of battering, Campbell wrote, \u201cI am deeply gratified to see the official health policy-making bodies recognize what many of us in nursing have been working on for a long time. I am proud that nursing has taken a leadership role in changing health care policy about violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learn more about why NLM is hosting this important exhibition<\/a>, and read about the traveling banner exhibition in The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is the last in a series exploring the history of nursing and domestic violence from Dr. Catherine Jacquet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19605840,"featured_media":17679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Change is Possible - the last in a 5 part series from the curator of Confronting Violence: Improving Women's Lives #NoViolenceNLM","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42333869,12763,51873791,2029,51014,2347],"tags":[24743,5967,678875802,9807,96,7193,97077],"class_list":["post-8577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives-manuscripts","category-collections","category-confronting-violence","category-exhibitions","category-guests","category-series","tag-1970s","tag-advocacy","tag-confronting-violence","tag-domestic-violence","tag-journal","tag-nursing","tag-womens-history"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/OB11102_feature.jpg?fit=900%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xcDk-2el","jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19605840"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8577"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20081,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577\/revisions\/20081"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}