Mom of Sick Connecticut Teen 'Collapses' in Court After Judge Sends Kid to Foster Care

[magical thyme]

59. suspected child abuse is one thing. but throwing out an existing diagnosis and treatment plan

without even consulting with the doctors to confirm the patient's history -- especially when one of the doctors involved in the history is on your own staff -- strikes me as medical malpractice.

That is based on my experience working in a hospital. We have patients from around the world come into our ED. We do not exclude their medical histories because of gut feelings or hunches. We seek them out to aid in diagnosis; if they are conscious we find out who their primary physician is. In the lab, if we get critical results from a visiting outpatient, we make every attempt to contact their primary physician.

They may still have suspected child abuse and reported the suspicians. But you do NOT ignore prior testing, history, treatment or any information that may give you clues. You seek it out first and weigh that information in your evaluation. And you confirm that testing and history with the physicians who performed it. You may take the information initially from the patient or parents, but then you confirm it directly with the physicians.

The simple fact that they not only did not seek that information and input out, but purposely excluded it makes them very suspect to me. That is not normal practice, at least where I work or with any of the area hospitals we occasionally work with (which has on rare occasion been Mass General because we have, on rare occasion, shipped patients there).