Child Abuse

So there is a lot of child abuse that I have seen. But it is never discussed. If I bring it up, the other doctors or medical students seem clueless that the injury was from child abuse. They also show no interest. Here are two examples that are on the ward right now.

Milness: Her story is that she fell into the fire. But she only has burns on her bottom and genitals. None on her arms or hands. When a child falls in a fire or scalding water, there are always burns elsewhere that occur as the child is trying to get out. Burns on the bottom only occur when someone is holding a child over a fire and the child is holding their legs out of the way.

Peter: His story is that he has spiral fractures of both legs from a bicycle falling on top of him. Maybe he could break his leg if he was ran over by a bicycle. But not spiral fractures. Spiral fractures are 95% of the time from child abuse...someone yanking and throwing the child. Peter has to be in traction like this for 3 weeks.