So Mandatory Reporting Isn't a Thing for Doctors?

[guest940422]

OK… let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I know I haven’t always been a perfect healthcare provider, I know I have screwed up and possibly put lives at risk, I’m not pretending I’m perfect… but I really need to vent here before I say something somewhere where I’ll get more than a tongue lashing from my peers.

I watched “Mommy Dead and Dearest” a few weeks ago and I just can’t get it out of my head… I’m just angry!

Dr. Bernardo Flasterstein, is a neurologist at Children’s Mercy Hospital. He is being interviewed in this documentary saying “I had a big doubt about the whole thing from the beginning”!!!! He wrote in his documentation that he believed the mother had Munchausen syndrome by proxy and publicly admits he never reported it because too many people believed she was really sick so “All I could really do was put it in the chart”

(cough cough) B&!! $&*T (cough)

I’ve been a mandatory reporter since I got a weekend job in a daycare in high school…. WHEN I WAS STILL A MINOR I had to take training on identifying and reporting suspected abuse.

The key word here is suspected… you do not have to confirm abuse to be responsible for reporting it… confirming it is CPS’s job. If you suspect it, you are responsible for reporting…. And not just any reporting, telling social work or your boss and assuming it got to CPS isn’t good enough… you are responsible for making sure the report goes to the authorities.

The first time I received this training, I was 16 years old, Gypsy was 11! I understood, why didn’t her doctor??????? In 2007 he wrote a whole provider’s note about not thinking she was sick... they hold it up in the movie… pause it you can read every word…. Years later she is on trial for murdering her mother.

As healthcare workers we are held accountable for everything, from paying child support, to defaulting on our student loans, to getting a DUI… any of those things can leave us liable and put our careers at risk. How is this man able to work after openly admitting he knew and did nothing?!?!?!

Screw it, let’s put him on TV so he can tell us what we already know and feel sorry for him because no one would have listened any way if he had bothered to speak up! I mean come on can we at least use this extreme case to learn and prevent other severely abused kids from slipping through the cracks???

He said we call social services in the case of neglect but that wasn’t what was going on in this case… long before Gypsy got her boyfriend to murder her mother, Dell Children’s hospital had cameras installed to catch a mom who was contaminating her child’s PICC line.

This is hardly a new form of abuse and this man knew what he should have done and just chose not too.

OK thanks I just needed to vent…

[JKL33]

No, it isn't new, but it is considered very rare (whether that is correct or not). He should have known that it wouldn't be inappropriate to report, but I wouldn't go as far as to make declarations about his motivations.

I thought they were investigated by the police at one juncture?

The idea that CPS might have just swooped in and removed her based on a suspicion of a rare form of abuse that inherently involves the appearance of legitimate medical illness is probably wishful thinking - although there is some tiny chance that they would've pursued concerns for abuse despite the fact that dozens (?hundreds) of people believed something completely different about the situation. I personally wouldn't put any money on that, though.

[guest940422]

Ya you're right, they did say someone had made a report at one point. Even that doesn't mean much, CPS is far too understaffed and overworked. I think i just got rawled up because he was on camera stating he suspected abuse but couldn't report it without proof.

Its more common than people think... typically its parents/caregivers refusing to believe their child is well or convinced they are sicker than they are. It is exceptionally rare that they are actively making the child sick.

I just keep thinking of all the reports I've had to make over the years and all the professionals she was paraded past and no one helped her... that's a damn shame.

[rnsrgr8t]

I just saw that documentary last night and was thinking the same thing. He should have reported it. Whether or not anything came of it is not the point. He made a very astute observation and it should have been reported. That way, the second time they were reported (and the police went to the house) Mom may not have been as able to manipulate the police like she did because there would have already been a record.