Seminar Urges the Reporting of Suspected Child Abuse : Social services: The Medina torture case is cited as an example of how crucial it is that teachers, doctors alert authorities.

With Orange County’s first child torture case as a backdrop, 80 teachers, social workers, doctors and religious leaders attended a daylong seminar Friday designed to dispel their fears about reporting suspected cases of child abuse.

The seminar for people required by law to report their suspicions of child abuse included tours of Orangewood Children’s Home and Juvenile and Family Court. Featured speakers included Family Court judges, social services officials and a deputy district attorney.

“We’re just hoping to encourage people to report cases of abuse by giving them a sense of how the system works,” said Jeanie Ming, a pediatric nurse with the Social Services Agency’s child abuse services team. “People want to know about what happens after they file a complaint.”

The furor over Orange County’s first child torture case has led to a heightened awareness in recent weeks of the role and legal responsibilities of teachers, social workers, police, doctors and others who are required by law to report suspected abuse.

According to authorities, on Sept. 7, Cynthia Medina, a 31-year-old Orange woman, seared her 10-year-old nephew’s tongue with hot knives, then anally penetrated him with a baseball bat as punishment for playing with her marijuana cigarettes. The child’s injuries were so severe that he had to undergo surgery.

The abuse came to the attention of authorities the next day, when Medina and her husband took the child to a doctor, alleging that he had fallen on the bat in a freak accident, authorities said.

After examining the child, the doctor faxed a child abuse complaint to the Orange County Child Abuse Registry. A social worker dispatched to the home examined the child and immediately ordered him hospitalized, according to social services officials.

Although some children’s advocates were critical of the doctor’s decision to send the child home with the Medinas, Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles J. Middleton said Friday that authorities credit action by both the doctor and the social worker in saving the boy’s life.

Speaking at Friday’s seminar, Middleton alluded to the Medina case in stressing the legal responsibility of attendees to report suspicions of abuse.

“There is a crime committed when a case is not reported to social services,” Middleton said.

Lori Marshall, a pediatric nurse at Children’s Hospital of Orange County, said that criticism of the doctor involved in the Medina case is unfair.

“People make assumptions that because you are medical people, you have the expertise to determine if something is child abuse,” she said. “One of the things we’re trying to do now is educate medical professionals. The need is apparent when you have a case like this that is so blatant.”