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Florencia Greer Polite ’93 Publishes Article

Florencia Greer Polite ’93, an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, recently published a paper in Obstetrics & Gynecology titled, “A multispecialty perspective on physician responsibility to sexual assault survivors.”
Florencia and her colleagues wrote, “As physicians who represent differing specialties of obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry and pediatrics, we have repeatedly experienced stories of sexual assault in the context of our various patient encounters. Although our individual specialties give detailed guidelines for physicians and cover the medical, legal and mental health aspects, we propose that all physicians should use another category called social responsibility. The mainstay of our social responsibility is to provide the victim with the support and resources to overcome this trauma. We outline the tenets of social responsibility as prevention, trust, reassurance and resource allocation. We hope to illustrate the importance of advocating for uniform adoption of a trauma-informed care approach to sexual assault survivors.”

Florencia was also interviewed by Penn Today for the article “Physicians, social responsibility and sexual assault survivors,” by Michele W. Berger. In the article she said, “Consent is something that has to be actually stated... Somebody has to be without the influence of drugs or alcohol, they have the right to give it and to take it away, and it’s something that’s per event only.”
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