Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 7, 1995                   TAG: 9511080009
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: C-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Medium

PHYSICIANS ASKED TO BE AWARE

To change that, the American Medical Association took aim Monday at doctors' lack of training in diagnosing and treating it.

``Victims are scared into silence by a mistaken sense of shame,'' Dr. Lonnie Bristow, president of the doctors' group, said at a news conference. ``The blame lies solely and forever only with the assailant.''

The problem, Bristow said, is that doctors are not asking the right questions about violence in their patients' lives.

``There are clues and tips that physicians can be alert to,'' he said. ``Doctors should ask questions designed to elicit the information.''

The AMA is sending guidelines to emergency room doctors, gynecologists and primary care physicians to help them ask those questions and decide what to do if a patient has been sexually assaulted.

``Doctors have learned to involve women in their own care,'' said Dr. Teresita Hogan, an emergency room doctor who serves on the AMA's panel on sexual assault. ``A woman does not need to fear that her secret will become public.''

The AMA suggests, for example, that emergency room doctors examine victims in a separate room for privacy, and that primary care physicians should work to build a relationship of trust with patients.

Beverly Harris Elliott of the National Coalition on Sexual Assault, in Harrisburg, Pa., said the initiative ``sounds great to me.''

Doctors and many other people do not know how to talk with someone who has been sexually assaulted, she said. Further, signs of sexual abuse are not always visible or physical.

``I really do applaud the AMA for this,'' she said.