zlacker

>>rossan+(OP)
> As a precautionary measure, the hospital followed mandatory reporting statutes and my wife and I temporarily lost custody of David. Thanks to our incredibly effective defense lawyer, we were cleared of all charges within two months, during which we stayed at the hospital 24/7 with David until we sorted out the legal procedures.

Holy shit. Parents bring baby to ER ... results reveal that baby was shaken (article later confirms this was not the case) ... parents lose custody for 2 months. Horror story.

>>itsmem+Jq4
Something similar happened recently in Massachusetts with a doctor seeing an injury the parents couldn't explain and the kid being taken away for a while. Injury turned out to probably have been done by the grandparents who never told the parents because the kid didn't fuss, but the kids were taken away in the middle of the night.

https://www.nbcboston.com/investigations/massachusetts-dcf-e...

>>cwmma+xn7
My first inclination here is to blame the doctor. Per the Hippocratic Oath, doctors need to understand the implications of making reports like this and only do so in cases where there isn't reasonable doubt or plausible explanations other than abuse. Separating children from parents and making accusations like this is extremely traumatic in itself, so the evidence bar needs to be very high.

Even if the rules tell doctors that they need to make a report in a given scenario, they should not be following the rules when they know the bureaucracies that handle these reports are dysfunctional and prone to separating children without conclusive evidence. Imo they are responsible for protecting their patients from the system in these cases.

>>danena+Vs7
So you err on the 'some children are abused and die' side of things, and other people err on the 'some parents get separated from their children' side.

I don't think the line is at doctors reporting, and I'll tell you why.

There are many cases of MD's having patients where they know the whole family and can't believe that abuse would be going on, so they don't report things like spiral fractures and pattern bruising in a five year old. Those are markers of serious domestic violence and abuse, but since the doc knows the parent, and the parent has a sorta reasonable explanation, fine.

No. The doctor reports, then the parents get investigated. Sorry it sucks, but the point to fix is the people interacting with the family at the point of investigation, not the report by an MD, because unfortunately the MD is going to lean towards not reporting until it is too late.