Catherine Ross, Ph.D., ACSW, LISW-CP, VSP
Chief Clinical & Educational Officer
Building sustainable and collaborative partnerships with the medical community is of paramount importance in the reduction of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) locally, state-wide, and nationally. Health care workers and doctors play a central role in the identification of patients experiencing IPV but may lack knowledge of local resources available to survivors as well as how IPV impacts a patient’s overall health outcomes.
It is extremely important that current and future doctors have knowledge of IPV and know how to identify and support their patients by becoming better informed and comfortable screening for IPV in a trauma-informed manner. Training future physicians and physician assistants to identify and screen patients who may be or have experienced IPV should be an integral part of a medical education and begins with student involvement.
In the Spring of 2020, a first-year medical student, Alec Giakas, approached me after I gave my annual lecture on, “Identifying Patients Experiencing IPV” and wanted to begin a student-led organization that could partner with Sistercare. Thus, Allies of Sistercare was formed and since then has been actively involved in supporting the mission, goals, and objectives of Sistercare.
Allies of Sistercare is part of Sistercare’s clinical department and works in tandem with the social work and Sistercare staff. It is led by a group of ambassadors with position descriptions and responsibilities unique to each of their roles. Dr. Britt Wilson is the medical school faculty advisor with Dr. Ross being the community advisor. The goal of Allies of Sistercare is to provide community outreach, fund-raising, research, and educational assistance for various projects designated by Sistercare. Some of these projects have ranged from getting needed items on Sistercare’s Wishlist, bake sales and selling fleece jackets, research on addressing barriers to IPV screening in healthcare settings, as well as participating in a wide range of community activities to raise awareness of IPV such as the annual “Mayor’s Walk Against DV”. In addition, Allies of Sistercare hosts two “Lunch and Learn” trainings per year conducted by Dr. Ross for medical students pertaining to the physiological effects of trauma on the body, the presentation of IPV in a medical setting, how to screen for IPV in an empathetic and trauma-informed manner, and having survivors share their stories and health outcomes.
In 2022, USC Medical School chose Sistercare as one of five community agencies to partner in a service-learning pilot project focusing on social determinants of health. This opportunity allowed students involved with Allies of Sistercare to learn more about their community, the social determinants of health, and how to apply that knowledge to the practice of medicine. The Allies of Sistercare students worked on addressing barriers for IPV screening in healthcare settings to develop screening instruments that may help lead to new approaches to promoting IPV screening in healthcare settings, more opportunities for community engagement and collaboration, and to create a more informed healthcare staff to better serve patients. This research was presented on Discover Day at USC.
In 2024, a former Allies of Sistercare student approached me about her concerns that there was hardly, if any, follow-up in screening for IPV in community-based settings. This led me to conduct four separate focus groups over a period of one year of survivors ranging from the ages of 20-70 years old with a medical OB-GYN intern and an OB-GYN doctor where survivors developed screening questions that survivors would feel more comfortable answering in a medical setting. Allies of Sistercare students were involved in helping to develop QR codes and posters that could be placed in an examining room for patients. The QR code lists Sistercare’s crisis line number and Sistercare services both in English and Spanish.
In 2026, while preliminary stages of piloting the IPV screening instrument in two community-based health care sites were being set up, the Allies of Sistercare students wanted to conduct a research study to assess the impact of survivor-led IPV education in a medical curriculum on future physicians after attending my annual lecture on “Identifying Patients Experiencing IPV” in conjunction with attending small group discussions led by Sistercare survivors. This research project, “Learning from Lived Experience: Survivor-Led IPV Education in Medical Training” was presented on Discover Day at USC and was awarded first place under the section on Case Reports/Learning Innovation. Findings from the IRB-approved, voluntary, and anonymous survey of 84 first year medical students suggested that medical students showed improved knowledge and confidence in addressing IPV in clinical settings and gain greater awareness of available resources thereby increasing their comfort level to initiate a conversation about IPV.
Sistercare’s long-standing involvement with USC Medical School underscores not only the importance of building and formalizing ongoing partnerships with Domestic Violence organizations, but the critical role of universal survivor-led trauma-informed IPV education in a medical curriculum.