Lifetime Versus Domestic Violence

The Lifetime cable channel, which describes its media mission as “Television for Women,” shows the extent of that commitment this month by spearheading a multifaceted national campaign against domestic violence and sexual assault.

The effort includes cable and online programming, community outreach and a political component through the Congressional Women’s Caucus, and it opens impressively Sunday with a slate of programming anchored by a brutally frank episode of “Strong Medicine” (8 p.m.).

The hospital drama, starring Janine Turner (“Northern Exposure”) as Dr. Dana Stowe, spares little time getting to the issue at hand.

After a brief scene in which the promotion of a new chief of surgery (guest star Gregory Harrison as Dr. Rand Kilner) is feted at a champagne celebration among staff, Dr. Lu Delgado (Rosa Blasi) leaves the festivities early, only to appear at the emergency room later that night with some shocking information: She says that she has been raped--by Kilner.

As word spreads within the facility, Delgado is subjected to the standard hospital procedure for rape victims, a process she knows so well that she recites the form’s language aloud as each step is performed by Dr. Stowe, a friend and colleague of both Delgado and Kilner.

The explicitness of the examination is unusual for television, and Blasi’s zombied yet angry performance strikes the perfect note for a respected professional whose world has just been turned upside down.

She begins to doubt her own response to the attack as well as the reactions of her colleagues as Kilner returns to the hospital with his own spin on what has transpired.

“Strong Medicine” indeed.