Monday, February 23, 2009
Crazy Crap Weird Case of Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy at Vandy Hospital
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 1:20 PM
This type of perverse betrayal, actually recognized by the psychologist's compendium, DSM-IV, seems to have happened at the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Julie Ann Hardin, 38, of Lebanon was arrested on suspicion of felony aggravated assault after hospital staff tipped off police.
Doctors were alarmed by the condition of her chronically ill 4-year-old son on Wednesday, and a search warrant of his hospital room and subsequent interview with Hardin revealed that she'd been injecting saline into his IV to keep him sick.
Of course, this is pure speculation that she even has Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, but the case certainly seems to meet all the preconditions. MSP is a recognized psychological disorder in which a mother, usually, will keep her young child sick in order to gain attention or develop a relationship with a doctor or nurse. The Cleveland Clinic estimates that 1,000 out of every 2.5 million cases of child abuse annually can be attributed to MSP.
Comments (5)
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so the other 2,499,000 cases of child abuse are bad parenting by eff'd up losers... but not MSP cases? are these mothers somehow absolved because someone named this abhorrent behavior?
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Alum, I don't believe psychology's aim of studying a kind of destructive behavior is necessarily apologizing for it. Sometimes it just helps to understand, then we might better prevent it.
my comment is not directed at hargrove, but the concept of MSP in general..
fair enough.. it just seems like a slippery slope, considering the rush to diagnose (and subsequently create a Rx market for) everything and anything these days - which inevitably leads to "it's not my fault, i've got XYZ disorder" defenses. any slippery slope that leads to excuses for child abuse leaves me feeling greasy.
