Title 

Evaluation of Perception of Doctors and Hospital Administrators on Their Experience of Handling Medicolegal Cases.

Authors

Ravindra B Deokar, Dhananjay D Mankar, Sachin S Patil

 Abstract

Introduction: The physicians need to have the appropriate knowledge in regards to their roles and responsibilities towards managing medicolegal cases to aid in court of law towards justice to the survivor/ injured as the handling Medico-legal case (MLC) are an integral part of emergency medical services in day-to-day medical practice at the Government hospitals as well as private clinics. Methodology: A crosssectional questionnaire-based pilot study in which feedback from the 51 doctors working at casualty, OBGY department or forensic department on their experience of handling medicolegal cases were taken on prevalidated feedback questionnaire. Results & discussion: In our study, about 32 doctors (62.74%) were having experience of handling medicolegal cases between 1 to 3 years. The prevalidated, structured questionnaire feedback from doctors shows positive inclination on suggestions/ improvements such as hands on training in UG curriculum, medicolegal training, standard formats and uniform guidelines on handling medicolegal cases, team approach by concerned experts in managing the medicolegal case with prime involvement of forensic experts and establishment of clinical forensic medicine department with clinical forensic laboratory services for bedside quantitative & qualitative toxicological and forensic analysis on material evidence from patients in medicolegal cases. Conclusion: The improvement and innovations including setting up a Clinical Forensic Medicine department with clinical forensic laboratory services is need of hour for improving results on material evidences towards aiding justice in court of law.

keywords 

Hospital Administrators, Questionnaire feedback, Clinical Forensic Medicine setup, Forensic Laboratory Services.

DOI