Medico-legal documentation of rape or sexual assault: are community-service doctors equipped for the task?
S. Afr. fam. pract. (2004, Online)
;
60(1): 812-2018. ilus
Artigo
em Inglês
| AIM
| ID: biblio-1270059
ABSTRACT
Background:
Following upon two-year internship, community-service doctors make mistakes when they deal with evidence of medico-legal examinations in various settings. These mistakes result in alleged perpetrators being released by courts. This study investigated undergraduate clinical forensic medicine training, based on experiences and opinions of community-service doctors. This article focuses on incidents of alleged rape cases only.Methods:
The study was a quantitative retrospective cohort study that made use of a questionnaire with an adapted Likert scale. An electronic survey tool was employed to target 150 community-service doctors throughout South Africa. Percentages are used to display results.Results:
A response rate of 59.3% was achieved. Although 80% of the participants reported that they had undergraduate training on how to manage alleged rape or sexual assault cases, only 11.4% of the participants had hands-on exposure to an alleged rape case during their undergraduate training. In addition, the majority of the participants (77.1%) never had undergraduate training on how to complete the J88 form. These findings indicate that clinical forensic training in the undergraduate medical programme does not adequately prepare community-service doctors to meet the challenges of clinical forensic practice. The current curriculum should be adapted to address these shortcomings.Conclusions:
Perpetrators cannot be convicted if evidence collected cannot stand up in court. Proper training of undergraduate medical students prior to their community-service posting will ensure that medico-legal documentation is completed correctly, leading to the presentation of credible evidence in a court of law in order to ensure successful conviction of alleged perpetrators
Texto completo:
DisponíveL
Índice:
AIM (África)
Assunto principal:
Estupro
/
Delitos Sexuais
/
África do Sul
/
Agentes Comunitários de Saúde
/
Medicina Legal
Tipo de estudo:
Estudo observacional
/
Estudo prognóstico
País/Região como assunto:
África
Idioma:
Inglês
Revista:
S. Afr. fam. pract. (2004, Online)
Ano de publicação:
2018
Tipo de documento:
Artigo
Similares
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS