Medical Discrepancy? Hearing Still On For Pediatrician Charged Of Injuring Foster Infant

The preliminary hearing on a complaint against a Milwaukee pediatrician will push through after a judge refused to dismiss the said complaint suggesting John M. Cox injured the infant he was adopting with his wife last May.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the 39-year-old emergency room doctor was charged last month with felony child abuse following the discovery of bruises on the infant’s arms.

Cox brought the baby to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in May last year, telling a colleague that he may have rolled onto his daughter while he was sleeping, which then resulted in the infant’s broken collarbone.

The broken collarbone did not show up in initial X-ray results but doctors tending to the baby girl found bruises on her arms. The infant was then referred to a child abuse specialist at Children’s, where Cox worked.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Stephanie Rothstein heard the defense team’s motion to dismiss the complaint against Cox but Rothstein declined to dismiss it following the statements from both sides.

Deputy District Attorney Matthew Torbenson argued that the expert medical opinion on the complaint and the baby’s injuries were not consistent with Cox’s account of what happened when the child was injured.

For his part in the hearing, Michael Levine, Cox’s defending attorney, pointed out that the first doctor his client consulted with for the baby’s treatment “did the right thing” of referring the child to a child abuse specialist, the Associated Press reported.

The said physician carried out independent investigation on the child’s injuries before coming to the conclusion that Cox’s foster daughter was not abused.

Child Protective Services workers have since taken the child into their custody, but the medical community remains divided on how exactly the infant was injured and whether Children’s conclusions were correct.

According to FOX affiliate WITI, Children’s said in a statement last month that the hospital will not comment on Cox’s case further and he is no longer working for the hospital. The hospital added that it takes serious responsibility over its mission to “protect children and take action on their behalf.”

If Cox is convicted of felony child abuse, he is faced with up to $10,000 in fines and up to six years behind bars. The preliminary hearing for his case was scheduled for February 18.