Author Archives: fgsadmin

Advocacy is not justice: diagnosing child abuse

First published at openinquiry.nz August 16, 2023

Felicity Goodyear-Smith

Child abuse paediatricians are doctors trained in diagnosing child abuse. They advocate for abused and neglected children and for programmes to prevent child mistreatment, and they consider whether conditions bringing children into hospital might have been caused by abuse. However there are situations where over-zealous paediatricians, in the desire to protect children, wrongly equate specific physical findings as evidence of abuse, with devastating consequences to children and their families.

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Shaken baby syndrome needs a rethink

FIRST PUBLISHED JUL 16, 2023 at Newsroom
Felicity Goodyear-Smith is a professor in general practice at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland.

SOCIAL ISSUES

Shaken baby syndrome needs a rethink

The term Abusive Head Trauma (Shaken Baby Syndrome) presupposes an action with malicious intent. These emotive labels should have no place masquerading as a medical diagnosis.
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All the ways you didn’t know you could catch ‘The Clap’ (it’s not just sex)

by Annemarie Quill
First published on Stuff 05:25, May 03 2023


Gonorrhoea can be spread by kissing without any sexual activity, experts say (file photo).

A sexually transmitted disease on the rise in Aotearoa, commonly referred to as ‘the clap’, can be caught from kissing, shared towels and even flies.

And government health advice, which says it can only be transmitted via sexual activity, needs to be updated, experts say.
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