Events and Classes

April 25, 2013 - Thursday am Presentations

8th Annual Pittsburgh Conference on Child Maltreatment

9 – 9:30 a.m.

Opening Address
Presenter: Honorable David Heckler, District Attorney, Bucks County

9:30 – 10:30 a.m.

Uncovering Child Abuse: The Ethics of Uncertainty
Presenter: Benjamin Levi, MD, PhD, Professor, Director, Center for the Protection of Children, Departments of Humanities and Pediatrics, Penn State College of Medicine, Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital

This session will examine ethical and practical challenges that arise in our efforts to protect children from abuse. Research findings will be presented about decision making for both reporting suspected abuse and concluding that abuse occurred. The implications of this research will be explored in terms of how we make decisions and what justifies the actions we take when dealing with children who have been, or are at risk for being, abused.

Objectives
Participants will:

be able to explain the role of reasonable suspicion in triggering mandated reporting of suspected child abuse.
be able to describe ethical concerns related to reporting suspected abuse.
be able to describe ethical concerns related to determining abuse.

11 a.m. – noon

Plenary Session
The Use and Mis-Use of Medical Literature in Child Abuse
Presenter: Christopher S. Greeley, MD, FAAP, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Center for Clinical Research and Evidence-Based Medicine Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston

This talk will address the basics of published medical literature, which is designed to report on information, experience and evidence based medicine. Papers published about child abuse cases will be used to highlight the pitfalls and misuse, especially in legal arenas. Attendees will gain insight into the process of critically evaluating the quality of published materials.

Objectives
Participants will:

gain a better understanding of the basics of medical publications, and appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of different types.
gain a familiarity with several, recent child abuse papers and their relevance to the practice of child protection.
acquire insights into how to critically appraise a journal paper, and how to understand when data is being misused or mis-represented.

Last Update
March 17, 2013

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