Child Abuse Pediatrics

Children with alleged abuse or complicated social situations can be intimidating for an emergency medicine (EM) physician. Doctors might be fearful of missing abusive injuries, saying the wrong thing to a family or a detective, or testifying in court cases for these patients. Rather than shying away from these cases, we encourage EM doctors to consider how vital they can be to a child in danger from maltreatment, and how much of a difference they can make for those patients. With additional child abuse pediatrics (CAP) training, you can have an even larger impact on children and their families. In CAP, physicians interact with multidisciplinary teams including child protective services (CPS), law enforcement, attorneys, forensic interviewers, and social workers to care for patients at risk of harm. EM physicians offer a unique perspective to these cases, and your expertise in child abuse would be an enormous asset to your emergency department colleagues or to academic researchers. If this area of advocacy and patient care is interesting to you, child abuse pediatrics (CAP) offers a rewarding and fulfilling career.