Child abuse controversy, continued 3

Another article, quite interesting, but too lengthy to quote more than an introduction. Related to: https://childnervoussystem.blogspot.com/2025/07/child-abuse-controversy-continued-2.html. Courtesy of a colleague.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/06/27/a-doctor-challenged-the-opinion-of-a-powerful-child-abuse-specialist-then-he-lost-his-job

On a February afternoon in 2022, Dr. Bazak Sharon logged into a remote video meeting from his home office in Minneapolis. He propped up his cellphone next to his laptop and hit record on a video app.

There were several people in the meeting with Sharon, who at the time was a pediatrician with the University of Minnesota. Two hospital leaders, Sharon’s boss and a lawyer were there, too. But the person Sharon was most wary of was in the lower-right corner of the grid of faces: Dr. Nancy Harper, the director of the child abuse team at University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.

Sharon suspected that the discussion, about the care of a 3-month-old named Hank, was going to be contentious. He worried that someday, perhaps even in court, he might need evidence of his role caring for Hank. He was prepared to argue with Harper if she challenged his clinical judgment, but it was quickly apparent that the quality of the care he provided was not at issue.

Hank was born small and was not eating well or gaining enough weight; sometimes, according to his parents, he just seemed to be in pain. (ProPublica is using a nickname for the child at the parents’ request.) At an appointment in January, a doctor ordered an endoscopy, a procedure where a tiny camera is threaded through the body, and also suggested an MRI.

The scans of Hank’s brain showed fluid pooled under both sides of his skull. The blood was old, possibly months old, and Hank was admitted to the hospital. Sharon met him the next day.

A member of Harper’s team named Dr. Caroline George also evaluated Hank that day. In her opinion, according to court records, the bleeding was “consistent with abusive head trauma.” Sharon had suggested other possible causes, including an injury from birth, an infection or even spontaneous bleeding. Sharon wrote in the child’s medical record that it’s “likely we will never identify the exact mechanism that caused his injury.”

Three days after Hank was admitted, Sharon said he learned that a county child protection services worker was preparing to come to the hospital to take custody of the baby, as well as his 2-year-old brother, William.

Sharon said that he was stunned that no one had spoken to him since he was Hank’s primary doctor. So he did something that seemed to put him at odds with George, Harper and hospital leadership: He told Hank’s parents, CPS and police he didn’t think the bleeding alone was enough evidence to say this was abuse.

Sharon was also concerned that separating a sick infant from his parents based only on a suspicion of abuse would cause more harm to Hank. Working with the detective assigned to the case, he admitted William, though the older boy was not sick, so that the whole family could stay in the hospital under the supervision of a nursing assistant while doctors continued to treat and monitor Hank.

But four days later, according to Sharon, his supervisor told him that he was being removed from Hank’s care team, and that he should not communicate further with the parents. When Sharon asked why, he said he was told it was at Harper’s recommendation. “The care,” he said, “changed the second she got involved.”

In less than 48 hours, a judge determined that Hank and William were in need of child protection services and their parents were forced to leave the hospital without them. The same day, Sharon said, he was summoned to the first of two meetings with hospital leadership and Harper. When his supervisors scheduled the second meeting — titled “Review of CPS Patient” in the emailed invitation — less than a month later, Sharon came prepared to record it.