Medical Child Abuse

This is a topic I am aware of from first hand experience, as a child victim.

Dissatisfied with her 16-year-old son's medical care, Michelle Rider was preparing to transfer him from Lurie Children's Hospital when a doctor delivered staggering news: The teen had been placed in temporary protective custody.

"They accused me of medical (child) abuse," Rider said of that morning last month. "I said, 'What is that?' They told me to Google it. I was not allowed to have contact with my son and was told they would be making medical decisions for now on."

The Chicago hospital accused Rider of interfering in the boy's medical care, moving him from hospital to hospital across five states, disagreeing with doctors' advice and demanding a powerful sedative to relieve pain that reportedly diminished when she wasn't present, according to records obtained by the Tribune.

The staff alleged that Rider, of Kansas City, Mo., exhibited hallmark characteristics of Munchausen by proxy syndrome, also called "medical child abuse" — a rare condition in which a caregiver subjects a minor to unnecessary medical procedures.

The boy was recently placed in a Chicago-area foster home in a case that raises difficult questions about what happens when medical treatment conflicts with the wishes of parents to do what they think best for their children. Rider, who was barred from seeing her child for 24 days, is now locked in an emotional custody battle in Cook County court's Child Protection Division, trying to prove she is a fit parent.

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