On a February afternoon in 2022, Dr. Bazak Sharon logged into a remote video meeting from his home office in Minneapolis. He propped up his cellphone next to his laptop and hit record on a video app.

There were several people in the meeting with Sharon, who at the time was a pediatrician with the University of Minnesota. Two hospital leaders, Sharon’s boss and a lawyer were there, too. But the person Sharon was most wary of was in the lower-right corner of the grid of faces: Dr. Nancy Harper, the director of the child abuse team at University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.

Sharon suspected that the discussion, about the care of a 3-month-old named Hank, was going to be contentious. He worried that someday, perhaps even in court, he might need evidence of his role caring for Hank. He was prepared to argue with Harper if she challenged his clinical judgment, but it was quickly apparent that the quality of the care he provided was not at issue.

Hank was born small and was not eating well or gaining enough weight; sometimes, according to his parents, he just seemed to be in pain. (ProPublica is using a nickname for the child at the parents’ request.) At an appointment in January, a doctor ordered an endoscopy, a procedure where a tiny camera is threaded through the body, and also suggested an MRI.

The scans of Hank’s brain showed fluid pooled under both sides of his skull. The blood was old, possibly months old, and Hank was admitted to the hospital. Sharon met him the next day.

A member of Harper’s team named Dr. Caroline George also evaluated Hank that day. In her opinion, according to court records, the bleeding was “consistent with abusive head trauma.” Sharon had suggested other possible causes, including an injury from birth, an infection or even spontaneous bleeding. Sharon wrote in the child’s medical record that it’s “likely we will never identify the exact mechanism that caused his injury.”

Three days after Hank was admitted, Sharon said he learned that a county child protection services worker was preparing to come to the hospital to take custody of the baby, as well as his 2-year-old brother, William.

Sharon said that he was stunned that no one had spoken to him since he was Hank’s primary doctor. So he did something that seemed to put him at odds with George, Harper and hospital leadership: He told Hank’s parents, CPS and police he didn’t think the bleeding alone was enough evidence to say this was abuse.