Clinical forensic nursing: a new perspective in the management of crime victims from trauma to trial.

Forensic nursing is one example of an innovative expansion of the role nurses will fill in the health care delivery system of the future. Because current policies of advocacy programs mandate the inclusion of criminal justice and health care providers, it is especially timely to propose that the forensic nursing specialist be placed in the trauma treatment environs to serve as a valuable link in interagency cooperation, ensuring that human needs and medicolegal interests are served. Because most emergency personnel and prehospital care providers ordinarily have only secondary interests in forensic matters, the motivated and skilled forensic nurse can serve as an invaluable resource for the criminal justice system, the hospital, and the patient.