This meeting is being held FACE TO FACE. Registration Fees apply for Non-Members of the Manchester Medical Society – Medical/Health related Students can attend for free by emailing from their student email account to admin@mms.org.uk . All attendees MUST register in advance.
1.30 pm - Coffee & Registration
Copy of afternoon programme order
2.00-5.00 pm - Symposium; 5.30-6.30 pm - Presidential Address
Sadly, abusive head trauma (AHT) is the leading cause of fatal head injuries in children younger than 2 years of age. The identification of a child who has suffered such abuse is vital to prevent the potential for escalation of injuries within the home setting and ensuring the safety of other family members in such an environment. To this end, a multidisciplinary team approach to diagnosis is essential. One that spans both community, hospital and tertiary level services. This process is based on assessment of clinical narrative, physical examination, ophthalmological assessment, imaging and laboratory findings. It is important that such assessments are mindful of potential medical mimics of AHT to ensure that whilst children are protected, cases where there may be an underlying medical cause are rightly identified.
Whilst there is no controversy concerning the medical validity of the existence of AHT, the courtroom has sadly become a forum for speculative theories which have no underlying accepted medical evidence base, either within the literature or within routine medical practice. Similarly attempts are still made to rely upon the “Triad” of medical findings of subdural haemorrahge, encephalopathy and retinal bleeding as representing a pattern recognition based approach to the diagnosis of AHT. In addition to these diagnostic challenges, the Court process is one that is found to be exceptionally stressful to the medical practitioners and allied health and social care professionals, involved in the management of these children. Colleagues across multiple disciplines both within the community as well as within the hospital environment. This level of stress is then escalated in those called to Court in an Expert Capacity and also those who are Professional Witnesses, having provided care to these children acutely.
This symposium brings together national experts in the cross-cutting domains of Paediatrics, Paediatric Radiology, Paediatric Ophthalmology, Paediatric Neuroradiology and Paediatric Neurosurgery, with over 100 years of combined experience in the field of child protection both nationally and at an international level. They will discuss the differing findings that suggest AHT within their domains of expertise and also touch upon areas where there is no reliable evidence of causation. Discussing alternate diagnoses which are still presented to the Court on the basis of speculation or indeed prior legal findings, which it must be stressed are not clinical evidence or borne out by the literature.
This symposium is recommended to all practitioners, across the different disciplines that care for children both in the community as well as in hospital paediatrics. With an emphasis on the domains that are more frequently called upon to provide evidence to the safeguarding process. A process that still remains a part of all our responsibilities.
Symposium Speakers
Professor Amaka Offiah, Chair of Paediatric Musculoskeletal Imaging and Honorary Consultant Paediatric Radiologist. Faculty Director of Wellbeing, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, (Medicine, Dentistry & Health), University of Sheffield. Convenor, Skeletal Dysplasia Group for Teaching and Research. Paediatric Radiology Managing Editor (Outside Americas)
Dr Neil Stoodley, Consultant Paediatric Neuroradiologist, Bristol Children’s Hospital. Member of the Family Division Working Group Committee on Expert Medical Evidence.
Dr Sarah Dixon, Consultant Paediatrician. Designated Doctor, Safeguarding Children, Manchester. Co-founder of the North of England Abusive Head Injury Peer Review.
Mr William Newman - Consultant Paediatric and Neuro-ophthalmologist, Manchester Royal Eye Hospital. Honorary Clinical Lecturer at the Universities of Manchester and Liverpool
Mr Ian Kamaly-Asl – Professor of Paediatric Neurosurgery at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. With particular expertise on the management of children with accidental head injury.
Sally Howes KC
Presidential Address of Professor Stavros Stivaros
Seeking Patterns: A Radiological Story
To quote the American Science Writer, Dr Michael Schermer, “Humans are pattern-seeking story-telling animals, and we are quite adept at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not.” Nowhere is this more exemplified in medical practice, than in imaging. From the inception of medical photography through the advent of x-ray and magnetic resonance based imaging, pattern recognition has been at the forefront of imaging diagnosis in clinical practice. This lecture will examine the global origins of medical imaging, origins that have a firm footing in Manchester and the Northwest. We will then explore the evolution of the specialty and look at where pattern recognition has taken us, but discuss whether we should leave such pattern-seeking behind, as we move forwards in the 21st Century.