How Should We Respond When Clinicians’ Calls to CPS Are Punitively Weaponized Against Families?

Abstract

This narrative illuminates need for students and clinicians to be well prepared to face ethically and structurally complex realities of identifying and responding to children who might have been abused. The commentary considers how to draw on equity as an ethical value when communicating with children's family members in clinical settings.Reflections on Mandatory Reporting "Does anyone know how this baby might have sustained these leg lesions?" Our pediatrics professor asks this question while projecting a photograph during a lecture to first-year medical students, including me. We squirm. "Notice the symmetrical, welldemarcated lesions," the professor continues. We avert our eyes. Finally, one student offers, "Child abuse?"