Child Abuse & Neglect: A Diagnostic Guide for Physicians, Surgeons, Pathologists, Dentists, Nurses and Social Workers PDF

PREFACE

The doctor who treats children, whether a generalist, pediatrician or one of a large number of specialists, has a moral and legal obligation to both dignose supected child maltreatment and to report it to the proper authorities. These obligations may bring the doctor into contact with the child protection system as well as with the courts. Any doctor or dentist who has testified in court will agree that the legal system operates under different rules, assumptions and standards of proof than does the medical system. The practitioner needs to be prepared for court testimony, and a foundation of knowledge about child maltreatment is essential.

This atlas is the product of cooperation among general pediatricians, child abuse pediatricians, social workers, psychologists, ophthalmologists, surgeons, emergency physicians, otorhinolaryngologists, and forensic dentists. It reflects our current, and increasing, knowledge base in this field. The reader will doubtless note that the contributors stress the importance of including a broad range of possibilities in their differential diagnoses. A color atlas is an ideal format for presenting high-quality representative photographs of diagnostic possibilities. A broad differential diagnosis is important, so that one does not call a non inflicted condition child abuse, nor mistake an inflicted injury for a more innocent condition. We would like to thank our contributors for the many images they have shared which have often been taken under difficult circumstances and over several years. We hope that this endeavor will prove useful to those who care for our most precious resource – our children.