- Precise delineation of injuries such as bruises and fractures
- An attempt to identify the age or likely age range of an injury
- An attempt to indicate the likely type and degree of force resulting in an injury
- Consider the type of mechanism which could have caused the injury
- The differentiation between natural disease and pathology resulting from abuse
- The differentiation between
. . . [Full text of this article]
Archives of Disease in Childhood 2004;89:799-804; doi:10.1136/adc.2004.055152
Copyright © 2004 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
Archives of Disease in Childhood 2004;89:799-804
© 2004 BMJ Publishing Group & Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
© 2004 BMJ Publishing Group & Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
LEADING ARTICLE
Legal
Avoidable pitfalls when writing medical reports for court proceedings in cases of suspected child abuse
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Professor T J David
Booth Hall Children’s Hospital, Charlestown Road, Blackley, Manchester M9 7AA, UK; t.david@netcomuk.co.uk
Accepted 4 May 2004
Avoiding pitfalls
Keywords: child abuse
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
All paediatricians, paediatric radiologists, paediatric pathologists, forensic pathologists, and many other specialists have to deal with cases of suspected child abuse, and in terms of the generation of complaints from families this is a high risk activity. Many complaints are devoid of merit, but in some cases a complaint is justified because of a faulty approach. This review draws attention to the avoidable pitfalls associated with report writing when child abuse is under consideration (see box 1
).
Box 1: Common medical issues that may arise in child protection cases
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