Mom arrested for Medical Child Abuse

[unsinkable]

I have no idea why anyone would do this - if she did. But I think it is odd that the newspaper consulted a prosecutor as some kind of 'expert' on that issue. I mean, he's tried two medical abuse cases, and he's can definitively say what her motive was without even being involved in the case? Surely there are actual mental health professionals who could speak more authoritatively?

Maybe they had a deadline and couldn't get ahold of anyone else quickly enough?

 

Maybe he's an old college buddy of the reporter?

 

Who knows?

[unsinkable]

Here is an expert who address the question of how physicians are fooled:

 

"Dr. Feldman: Regarding the apparent ease with which physicians can be duped: this isn't a surprise to me. Physicians are taught nothing about medical deception in medical school or residency. Even as a psychiatric trainee, I never even heard the word "factitious"; it was only after I submitted my first article about a patient who feigned cancer that I heard the term. In the article, I had called it "malingering," and the reviewers pointed out my mistake.

 

During medical school, a supervisor got angry with me for writing statements such as "According to the patient, she has shortness of breath" or "The patient states he has chest pain." He said that I was demonstrating that I already doubted what I was being told by not stating it as simple fact, and so I had to re-write the entry simply as "She has shortness of breath" and "He has chest pain." Also, doctors are taught (correctly) that the best clue to what is going on with a patient is what the patient and family have to say about it and that we must form an "alliance" with both (particularly in psychiatry, but actually in all fields). We are not taught ever to doubt what is being said. So, again, it doesn't surprise me that doctors can not only be gullible but also wind up being, as one author put it, "professional participants" in MbP maltreatment."

 

http://criminalconduct.blogspot.com/2013/08/interview-mommy-makes-me-sick-defining.html#.U08oEZG9KSM

[Amy in NH]

If the child is non-verbal or minimally verbal, often all there is to go on is the parent's word. I could've easily gotten an endoscopy done on my little one (was offered a referral for one by our pediatrician but declined it) when her 2nd round of celiac testing came back negative. I didn't see the point of putting youngest DD through an invasive procedure rather than just trying out a gluten-free diet. But if I were unethically faking symptoms to get attention or sympathy or whatever, it would've been very easy to have that procedure done.

 

I was also offered a referral for an MRI by youngest DD's pediatric neurologist but as it would've required general anesthesia, I didn't feel like the potential benefits outweighed the potential risks.

 

If you've got good PPO insurance and a local teaching hospital looking to make money off of those with good insurance coverage, it's fairly easy to get tests and procedures ordered.

 

Yes, but aren't we talking about multiple brain surgeries?

[Laurie4b]

If the child is non-verbal or minimally verbal, often all there is to go on is the parent's word. I could've easily gotten an endoscopy done on my little one (was offered a referral for one by our pediatrician but declined it) when her 2nd round of celiac testing came back negative. I didn't see the point of putting youngest DD through an invasive procedure rather than just trying out a gluten-free diet. But if I were unethically faking symptoms to get attention or sympathy or whatever, it would've been very easy to have that procedure done.

 

I was also offered a referral for an MRI by youngest DD's pediatric neurologist but as it would've required general anesthesia, I didn't feel like the potential benefits outweighed the potential risks.

 

If you've got good PPO insurance and a local teaching hospital looking to make money off of those with good insurance coverage, it's fairly easy to get tests and procedures ordered.

 

I can see in those conditions, but in this case, she wrote that he had chiari, spina bifida, and a chromosomal abnormality. Wouldn't both chiari and spina bifida be diagosed based on observation through MRIs, etc?  I am just confused as to how a mother could fake those conditions.

[idnib]

Yes, but aren't we talking about multiple brain surgeries?

 

Yes, it's hard to reconcile. For example, just a bit from her Caring Bridge site:

 

 

 

He has a form of Spina Bifida called Lipomyelomeningocele (LMC), which is basically myelomeningocele (the Spina Bifida that most people are familiar with ~ where the baby is born with the spinal cord outside of the body) that is covered by skin and also has a benign tumor made of fat, muscle & nerves growing in and around the spinal cord. ______ also has Chiari type 1 and is fed primarily through a gastrostomy tube (gtube).... In his first year of life, Joshua had just 1 surgery ~ his initial repair done at birth where the neurosurgeon removed as much of the tumor as she could, put his spinal cord back into the spinal canal where it belonged, closed the dura (with an artificial graft) and the skin. However, this past year has been one hospitalization after another. Joshua had 2 Chiari decompressions (April 20th & October 1st), 1 tethered cord release (April 20th), a gtube placed (August 13th), an emergency laparoscopy to retrieve a piece of the gtube that got lost in his abdominal cavity during a “routine†procedure to change the PEG tube for a Mickey button (both on September 25th) and then another GI procedure to change over the button once more (it was done in the OR just in case the same complication occurred again ~ on December 4th). He’s also had multiple MRIs, pH probes, endoscopies, CT scans, xrays, ultrasounds of various body parts, VCUG/urodynamics, and more doctor appointments than I can keep count of (over 100, easily). Joshua did have good speech for his age until he was 10 months old, at which time his Chiari became symptomatic and he lost what words he had. Unfortunately, he hasn’t regained much speech and relies mostly on pointing, grunting/squealing and a few words or approximations of words to communicate.

 

That does seem hard to fake. I'm wondering if some of these were necessary and others were not but were performed based on her lying? Or maybe they were not all done in actuality but she said they were on her blog?  Maybe it had to do with how she was managing their at-home care, pain killers, and medication? 

 

Or maybe it's legit. I would feel terrible for her if it was. :svengo:

 

The "re-homing" is probably a crime if it they can't find the papers of the new guardianship or whatever legal steps she should have taken. Possibly also the witness tampering if she told them to lie, even if she was doing the right thing and has been wrongly accused about the abuse.

[Guest submarines]

That's interesting. I'm certainly glad doctors involve parents in decision making, but it is a little scary too, if it's so easy to get procedures done in some places that might not really be needed. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

 

I lived not far from the woman, but I found our doctors to be VERY conservative. 

 

When DD was a newborn one of her eyes was smaller and she tilted her head. Our pedi said it was muscular, but I worried about it being neurological. He said, "Sure, I can write you a referral for an MRI, but you will only worry more after doing it. There are all kind of little tumors that come and go and we don't know much about them. You'll only stress yourself out." So I thought about it and decided against an MRI. Another parent could have easily opted for an MRI, which can be quite invasive for an infant.

[Crimson Wife]

I can see in those conditions, but in this case, she wrote that he had chiari, spina bifida, and a chromosomal abnormality. Wouldn't both chiari and spina bifida be diagosed based on observation through MRIs, etc?  I am just confused as to how a mother could fake those conditions.

My guess is that the boy does have some legitimate medical issues and *IF* the allegations of abuse are true, the mom started exaggerating his health problems to gain more attention & sympathy. Test results can be inconclusive and false negatives do sometimes happen. If the mom were swearing up and down that her non-verbal or minimally verbal son had been experiencing certain symptoms (easily discovered via Google), I can totally see a doctor ordering procedures as a CYA thing. Malpractice lawsuits typically are for tests and procedures NOT ordered, rather than for doing them unnecessarily. I think so-called "defensive medicine" is particular an issue where I live (lots of lawyers).