The student organization Advocates for Trauma-Informed Care is working to educate students and faculty on the supported needed for trauma survivors in healthcare settings. Credit: Courtesy of Advocates for Trauma-Informed Care
Advocates for Trauma-Informed Care, a student organization led by Ohio State medical school students, is working to educate students and faculty involved in healthcare regarding the support needed for trauma survivors within medical care situations through a series of seminars.
Led by Ph.D. students Jacelyn Greenwald and Sabrina Mackey-Alfonso, the inspiration for the organization came from a lack of information regarding trauma-informed care in the medical school’s curriculum, and it “trains students and physicians in the art of providing resources to and supporting survivors, in the clinic and beyond,” according to the organization’s webpage.
Trauma-informed care is defined by the National Institute of Health as “an intervention and organizational approach that focuses on how trauma may affect an individual’s life and his or her response to behavioral health services from prevention through treatment.”
“Not a lot of other schools teach about trauma-informed care, but it greatly impacts survivors,” Mackey-Alfonso said.
Mackey-Alfonso said that 70 percent of individuals have experienced some trauma in their lifetime.
“And something that has consistently happened is survivors do not have a very good relationship with the medical field, and [it’s] leading to a lot of health care burden later on when they come in,” Mackey-Alfonso said.
In working with Dr. Creagh Boulger, a physician and professor of emergency medicine, Mackey-Alfonso and Greenwald have attempted to combat these experiences.
“I think we bring our own experiences to our patient encounters. And it’s almost impossible to see things from somebody else’s perspective unless you’re actively trying to,” Boulger said. “And so I think that trauma-informed care and being educated about trauma-informed care kind of opens your eyes to that so that you can see your patient holistically.”
The final seminar of the semester will take place on Friday via Zoom, focusing on the unique struggles of deaf survivors of sexual violence, and featuring speakers from the nonprofit organization “Deaf World Against Violence Everywhere,” according to the seminar’s webpage.
“I think anybody who’s going to be in some sort of service industry where you’re interacting with people, understanding the baggage people bring and the history people bring to an interpersonal interaction is so important to how you can make it a good interaction or a bad interaction,” Boulger said. “I think that’s really the point of trauma-informed care is to not cause any further harm and to potentially even start the healing process, like being informed and being compassionate and being educated.”
