Martin A. Finkel, DO, FACOP, FAAP, is a Professor of Pediatrics and the Medical Director and co-founder/director of the Child Abuse Research Education & Service (CARES) Institute at Rowan University - School of Osteopathic Medicine (Formerly University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey). In 1987 he established a University Center of Excellence, which formed the nidus of what has matured into the CARES Institute. In 2004 the CARES Institute was designated as a statewide resource to inform best practices in the delivery of medical and mental health diagnostic and treatment services. Dr. Finkel is an internationally recognized authority on the medical evaluation and treatment of the child alleged to have been sexually abused. Dr. Finkel was instrumental in developing New Jersey's statewide network of child abuse diagnostic and treatment centers, the first legislatively created state system of regional centers in the country. These centers of excellence provide services for sexually and physically abused children and educate professionals within the medical, child protection, law enforcement, and mental health communities on the evaluation of the child victim. He has been a pioneer in the use of videocolposcopy for the assessment and documentation of residual to sexual abuse. He is the author of the first scientific paper published in the medical literature on the healing and interpretation of acute genital and anal trauma. He has published numerous articles and authored book chapters. The 3rd edition of his textbook Medical Evaluation of the Sexually Abused Child: A Practical Guide, published in 2009 by the American Academy of Pediatrics, was translated in 2011 into Chinese as the first medical reference textbook on child sexual abuse published in China. A Japanese version was published in 2012, a Spanish edition in August of 2015, Pakistani edition in 2016, and an Arabic edition is under development. A 4th edition of this text will be released in 2019.
Dr. Finkel has been appointed by eight Governors to co-chair with the Commissioner of Children and Families, New Jersey's Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect. He was a founding commissioner of New Jersey's Children's Trust Fund to prevent child abuse. Dr. Finkel served on the national board of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children where he had oversight for the development of national standards regarding medical terminology and the interpretation of medical findings. He completed a 6-year term on the national board of Prevent Child Abuse America. He has been actively involved with the development of a training curriculum for developing countries for the International Society on the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN). In 2010 he was elected to a 6 year term as an ISPCAN Councilor and in 2012 elected to the Executive committee as Treasurer. In 2012 he received the Ray E. Helfer Society lifetime achievement award and the United States, Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Commissioner's award. In 2016 he received the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award presented by The Arnold P. Gold Foundation.
Angelo P. Giardino, MD, PhD, MPH, is the Wilma T. Gibson Presidential Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Utah's School of Medicine and Chief Medical Officer at Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received his medical degree and doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania, completed his residency and fellowship training at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and earned a Master's in Public Health from the University of Massachusetts. He holds subspecialty certifications in Pediatrics and Child Abuse Pediatrics from the American Board of Pediatrics. He is also a Certified Physician Executive (CPE) within the American Association for Physician Leadership. He completed the Patient Safety Certificate Program from the Quality Colloquium, is certified in medical quality (CMQ) as designated by the American Board of Medical Quality, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American College of Medical Quality. Dr. Giardino is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Child Health Finance. He is a recipient of the Fulbright & Jaworski Faculty Excellence Award at Baylor College of Medicine and the 2013 Healthcare Advocacy Award from Doctors for Change in Houston, TX.
His academic accomplishments include published articles, chapters and textbooks on child abuse and neglect, contributions to several national curricula on the evaluation of child maltreatment, and presentations on a variety of pediatric topics at both national and regional conferences. He is a Board member for several national and regional boards, including Prevent Child Abuse America, Mobilizing Action for Resilient Communities, the U.S. Center for SafeSport, and the National Advisory Council of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (CMSM) for the U.S. Catholic Church, where he provides advice on how to best protect children from sexual abuse. He is also co-editor of the Children at Risk Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk and the Journal of Family Strengths. Previously, Dr. Giardino served for 12 years on the National Review Board for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, where he chaired the Research Subcommittee, was elected Vice-Chair, and introduced the concept of high reliability as a quality improvement approach to work toward the response, and ultimately the prevention, of child sexual abuse in the church environment.
