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.
 
 Full text of the research articles are available online at www.medpharm.tandfonline.com/ojfp)
 
 S Afr Fam Pract 2018; DOI: 10.1080/20786190.2017.1348046
Highlights
Sexual assault and rape are violent crimes and among the most demoralising of personal traumas, often leaving victims physically assaulted, emotionally traumatised or even dead.[1]
In a study aimed at investigating the barriers to effective use of medico-legal findings in cases of sexual assault, Du Mont and White reported that a lack of competence among law enforcement, forensic scientists, legal and medical professionals who deal with sexual assault and rape cases often negatively impacts on the integrity of medico-legal findings.[9]
This study found that most community-service doctors who participated in the study took detailed histories of the alleged rapes or sexual assaults, as well as gynaecological and sexual histories of patients
Summary
Sexual assault and rape are violent crimes and among the most demoralising of personal traumas, often leaving victims physically assaulted, emotionally traumatised or even dead.[1]. 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. 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. 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
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