NATION IN BRIEF : NATIONWIDE : Doctors Accused of Ignoring Abuse

The most common cause of women’s injuries--abuse at home--is largely ignored by doctors, the Journal of the American Medical Assn. said. Twenty-two percent to 35% of women who visit emergency rooms have physical or stress-related abuse symptoms, it said. The report said most of the victims are “discharged without any arrangements made for their safety, to return to the same abusive relationships.” But Dr. Jack Allison of the American College of Emergency Physicians said the report overstated doctors’ shortcomings and failed to indicate to what extent women are unwilling to implicate those who abuse them.