To the Editor:
In my experience as a doctor, the true failing of the medical community is underreporting suspected abuse. Child Protective Services and the legal system are doing too little, too late. I believe that the vast majority of physicians interact with parents who exhibit the “warning signs” of medical child abuse fairly frequently. For a situation to qualify as suspected medical child abuse, there has to be suspected harm to the child. Physicians are not in the habit of reporting parents to Child Protective Services who are perceived as demanding or overbearing, as the writer seems to suggest.
Disgruntled parents and patients are free to give their account of an illness or situation to the media. The doctors and hospitals who treat the patients are constrained by privacy laws and therefore unable to give their version of events. One should always keep this in mind when reading an article like this.
JULIE KOCH
North Wilkesboro, N.C.
