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

[magical thyme]

76. the parent's story is NOT the only story we are getting. Dr. Korson has been interviewed

and provided his perspective as well. Reporters have interviewed friends of the family. The Globe reports they gathered medical records and other information. Former workers at Children's have offered some insight into what goes on there. Lawyers who have clients who also had their children taken into Children's psych ward have also offered their experiences.

You are certainly jumping to conclusions. You are jumping to the conclusion that Children's may have saved Justina's life by refusing to get a full medical history on her prior to terminating her current treatment and forcing their own on her. You are assuming their accusation of medical child abuse against the parents for following their doctor's recommendation -- without even bothering to find out why her doctor gave the diagnosis, and in fact refusing to avail themselves of that information -- was endangering her life.

What I am saying, as a lab technician who actually works in a hospital with doctors who actually diagnose and treat patients, and who actually studied healthcare, including diagnosis and treatment (from the perspective of the testing) is that by refusing to get a full medical history, family medical history, and personal history as part of her diagnosis, Children's was putting her life at extreme risk.

YOU DO NOT DIAGNOSE WITHOUT GETTING AS MUCH INFORMATION AS IS AVAILABLE. PERIOD. END OF STORY.

Presenting signs and symptoms are only a small piece of the puzzle.

Medical history is important -- prescription drugs, drug interactions with foods you've eaten, over the counter drugs with other over the counter drug interactions, all matter.

Family history is important, from illnesses in the family to recent travel. Present with malarial symptoms does not mean you have malaria or that you are doing drugs. Oh wait, you went to the cape over the summer -- consider babesiosis.

Presenting with bruising does not mean you've been beaten -- you could have coag issues, you could be on coumadin therapy or have hemophelia.

So doctors take a medical history, a personal history, they run some set tests and some specialized tests depending on what the patient is presenting with. And the results of those tests may or may not lead to additional tests.

And presenting with a medical history with the diagnosis of a rare disease, some changing of doctors, and some surgery (with the surgeon right in your hospital) means you go to the diagnosing and treating doctors and find out how they based their diagnosis.

Because even if you reject their diagnosis, you are doing so in an informed way, instead of out of ignorance.

That is how diagnosis is properly done.

You are saying by ignoring her medical history, they may have saved her from parents following her doctor's life. I am saying by ignoring her medical history and refusing to avail themselves of her prior doctors' knowledge of her case, they may well be guilty of medical malpractice.