Child Abuse Pocket Atlas Series, Vol. 2: Sexual Abuse

Randell Alexander is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida and the Morehouse School of Medicine. He currently serves as chief of the Division of Child Protection and Forensic Pediatrics and interim chief of the Division of Developmental Pediatrics at the University of Florida-Jacksonville. In addition, he is the statewide medical director of child protections teams for the Department of Health’s Children’s Medical Services and is part of the International Advisory Board for the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome. He has also served as vice chair of the US Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, on the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect, and the boards of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC) and Prevent Child Abuse America. Randell Alexander has served on state child death review committees in Iowa, Georgia, and Florida, and two regional child death review committees. He is an active researcher, lectures widely, and testifies frequently in major child abuse cases throughout the country.

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Angelo Giardino is the medical director of Texas Children’s Health Plan, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, and an attending physician for the Texas Children’s Hospital’s forensic pediatrics service at the Children’s Assessment Center in Houston, Texas. Angelo Giardino completed his residency and fellowship training in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Immediately after his fellowship training, Angelo Giardino became the assistant, and then the associate, medical director at Health Partners of Philadelphia, where he had primary responsibility for utilization management, intensive case management, and health care data analysis. He also shared responsibility for the plan’s quality improvement program. Additionally, he began the Child Abuse and Neglect Team for Children with Special Health Care Needs, which was funded by a three-year grant from a local philanthropy. In 1998, he was appointed associate chair of clinical operations in the Department of Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and in June of 1999 he was asked to chair the CHOP Quality Committee. These accomplishments are only a few of his career.

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Debra Esernio-Jenssen is currently working at Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital in the field of Child Protective Medicine. She is also currently the Medical Director of the John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center. In 2009 she was certified by the American Board of Pediatrics in Child Abuse Pediatrics. From 1998 to April 2010, she was the Director of the Child Protection Center at Schneider Children’s Hospital and the Chair of the Child Protection Consultation Team at Long Island Jewish Hospital in New Hyde Park, New York. She graduated from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1982 and completed her pediatric residency at North Shore University in Manhasset, NY where she was selected to be Chief Resident in Pediatrics in 1985. In 2007, she was invited to join the Ray Helfer Society. She is a member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and has a special interest in prevention. Debra has also produced a domestic violence and abusive head trauma public service announcement that has been shown on the big screen before every University of Florida home football game. Debra is recognized both nationally and internationally for her work in child abuse and child abuse prevention.

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Jonathan Thackeray is Clinical Director of The Center for Family Safety and Healing at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Assistant Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. In addition to hospital medicine, he is a member of the faculty of The Center and was appointed as Clinical Director of the Child Assessment Center in 2007. He also serves as the Director of the Step 2 Clinical Skills Program at the College of Medicine. He is active in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Section on Child Abuse and Neglect and serves as editor of the section’s newsletter. He recently completed a two-year term as president of the Ohio Chapter of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and is a Scholar Member of the Ray E. Helfer Society and a member of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association. His professional interests include intimate partner violence and resident education. He is board certified in general pediatrics and internal medicine.

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Joyce Adams has been involved in the medical evaluation of suspected sexual abuse since 1984, first as the director of the Sexual Abuse Evaluation Program at the University of Kansas Medical Center, and then at Valley Medical Center in Fresno, California. She has published extensively in the field of medical evaluation of suspected sexual abuse. She also speaks regularly at national and international meetings on topics of sexual abuse and adolescent gynecology, and is active as an expert witness in child sexual abuse cases nationwide. Currently, Joyce Adams is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Primary Care Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at UCSD. She is involved in teaching, clinical care, and research in several settings, including the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego. She also acts as a consultant for the Sexual Abuse Response Team and Child Abuse Program at Palomar and Pomerado Hospitals in San Diego County.

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Suzanne Starling is a professor of pediatrics at Eastern Virginia Medical School and medical director of the Child Abuse Program at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia, where she also directs the Child Abuse Pediatrics Fellowship program. She earned her medical degree from East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, completed her pediatrics residency in Greenville, South Carolina, and her fellowship in Child Abuse Pediatrics at the University of Colorado and The Children’s Hospital in Denver Colorado. She testifies nationally as an expert witness in child abuse and neglect cases and has published more than 25 journal articles and book chapters in the field. Suzanne Starling is immediate past chair the Executive Committee of the Section on Child Abuse of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She also serves as chair of the American Board of Pediatrics subboard on Child Abuse Pediatrics, the board that oversees the education and certification process in the field of child abuse. She is a charter member of the Ray E. Helfer Society, an honorary society for physician specialists in child abuse. She has received many awards for her work, including being named Outstanding Professional by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.

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David Chadwick was the Director Emeritus of the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego. He engaged in clinical work with abused children starting in 1960. In 1961, along with C. Henry Kempe, Leon Eisenberg, and others, he attended a meeting at the Children’s Bureau in Washington drafting the first model child abuse reporting law. He created the Center for Child Protection at Children’s Hospital in San Diego – one of the first in the country – in 1976 and became its director in 1985. It was later renamed the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego. He also helped to found the San Diego Community Child Abuse Coordinating Council and was instrumental in developing a Committee on Child Abuse in the American Academy of Pediatrics. He was an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University, where he engaged in research on the epidemiology of physical abuse. Dr. Chadwick passed away in January 2020.

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Rich Kaplan was a board-certified pediatric child abuse specialist at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Center for Safe and Healthy Children at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital, and Associate Medical Director at Midwest Children’s Resource Center. He worked with victims of child abuse for over 30 years, first as a social worker and then, for the rest of his career, as a pediatrician. In addition to his work in general pediatrics, Dr. Kaplan was a pioneer in the field of child abuse pediatrics, being among the earliest certified in that specialty. He was internationally recognized as a leading figure in pediatric medicine and received many awards and honors for his dedication to the field. Dr. Kaplan passed away August 19, 2013.

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