Pediatricians are advocates for children. It is one of the central elements of the job description. In the course of their work, pediatricians have many opportunities to advocate for abused…
Children enter foster care with many forms of adversity and trauma beyond maltreatment that impact their short- and long-term physical, mental, and developmental health and their adaptation to their new…
The most common medicolegal issues include reporting child maltreatment, the presentation of ethical and effective expert testimony, informed consent in child maltreatment cases, and various liability risks related to child…
The process whereby a clinician decides that child abuse is a diagnostic possibility is often marked with doubt and fear. Abusive parents can present convincing lies, and children with suspicious…
Uncertainty in the diagnosis of abuse can have profound implications for the health and safety of the child, the emotional burden of a family, and investigative and criminal proceedings. A…
Cultural diversity poses challenges within the health care setting, particularly regarding the question of how health professionals can resolve the tension between respecting cultural norms or child-rearing practices and the…
Cognitive errors have been studied in a broad array of fields, including medicine. The more that is understood about how the human mind processes complex information, the more it becomes…
This article reviews some of the challenges and pitfalls in communicating with families when abuse is part of the differential diagnosis and offers some suggestions for improving communication with parents…
Corporal punishment is used for discipline in most homes in the United States. It is also associated with a long list of adverse developmental, behavioral, and health-related consequences. Primary care…
Emotional maltreatment may be the most complex, prevalent, and damaging form of child maltreatment and can occur simultaneously with other forms of abuse. Children in the first few years of…
