In early March, Judge Johnson put Justina Pelletier's medical care back with Dr. Korman/Tufts

[pnwmom]

137. No, the paper makes no conclusions. But what it does report is enough to make clear

that this is a territorial dispute between two teams of doctors: the metabolic specialists and GI doctors from Tufts who had treated Justina and her sister for years; and the psychiatrists at Children's, led by a doctor who had just finished training 7 months before all this began.

There is no indication that anything else caused the hospital's immediate decision to take her out of the care of the Tufts doctors and insist that her primary problem was psychiatric. As your quote above says, there had been an earlier allegation of neglect alleging that the parents hadn't followed through on mental health services "but the allegations were dismissed."

What I see here is incredible gall on the part of the Harvard psychiatrists who rejected a physical diagnosis that was out of their purview and decided on a psychiatric diagnosis instead. And then, when they were called on what turned out to be a poor decision -- the girl obviously has serious physical problems, including a measurable motility issue in her bowels -- they shifted the blame to the state.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/12/16/month-medical-ordeal-conclusion-still-uncertain/Y7qvYTGsq8QklkxUZvuUgP/story.html

And what about the psychiatric diagnosis of somatoform disorder that psychologist Simona Bujoureanu had given to Justina and that the state had, in turn, insisted her parents accept if they wanted to regain custody? Dr. David DeMaso, the hospital’s noted psychiatrist-in-chief, points out that the mental health field has largely moved away from using somatoform disorder as a useful diagnosis. “It was kind of vague,” he said, noting his preference for “somatic symptoms,” which allows for more flexibility in diagnosing it in conjunction with other illnesses.

Asked in an interview to explain how parents could be told that they had no choice but to accept the hospital’s diagnosis of somatoform disorder as a condition of regaining custody, DeMaso stressed that it wasn’t up to Children’s to determine custody. “That’s DCF,” he said.

Added a hospital spokesman: “We can’t be responsible for what DCF says or does.”