Module 7 - Forensic Med Flashcards
Medicine
✓Science
✓Profession
✓Thing
> Branch of medicine which deals with the application of medical knowledge to the purpose of law and in the administration of justice.
Legal Medicine
> A science that deals on the relation and application of medical facts to legal problems that are brought before the court.
Forensic Medicine
> Case involving medical aspects that is decided by the Supreme Court
> Law that will govern the relationship of the Doctor and Patient
Medical Jurispudence
Importance of Learning Forensic Medicine/ Legal Medicine
✓ Equipped with knowledge
✓ Better understanding of the facts surrounding the case
✓ Learn how to arrange facts to get a good conclusion
✓ How to interpret the relationship
Ordinary Physician
Injury > Treatment
Examination > Diagnosis
Sees only major injuries (severe)
General Doctor
Medicolegal Officer
Injury > Investigation
Examination > What caused the injury
Every Injury Matters
Physician who specializes or is involved primarily with medicolegal cases.
Responsibilities
Conducts Autopsy
Conduct examinations of sexual crime, physical injuries, skeletal remains, and body fluids.
Exhume bodies
Medico Legal Officer
Medicolegal Case
Who can’t be identified
Dead on arrival
Following Circumstances:
Person who died 24 hours of admission
- Unexpected sudden death
- Natural Cause (Foul play)
- Violence
- Negligence of others
- Abuses
- Mental competency
- Negligence of hospital staff
Shall be performed in following cases:
✓ Solicitor general, provincial or city fiscal
✓ Whenever the nearest kin shall request in writing the authorities concerned to ascertain the cause of death.
Autopsy
Medicolegal Aspects of Identification
Importance of Identification of Person:
Prosecution of the criminal offense
Identification of missing person or presumed dead
Resolves the anxiety of the next of kin, other relatives or friends
May be needed in some transactions
Rules in Personal Identification:
Law of Multiplicity of Evidence in Identification
Value of different points of identification varies in the formulation of conclusion
The longer the interval between death and the examination of the remains for purposes of identification, the greater is the need for expert in establishing identity.
In as much as the object to be identified is highly perishable it is necessary for the team to act in the shortest possible time specially in cases of mass disasters
There is no rigid rule to be observed in the procedure of identification of persons.
Methods of Identification
By Comparison and By Exclusion
✓ Identification criteria recovered during investigation are compared with records available in the file; or postmortem finding are compared with antemortem records.
By Comparison
✓ If two or more persons have to be identified as all but one is not yet found identified, then the one whose identity has not yet been established may be known by the process of elimination.
By Exclusion
