The History and Development of Clinical Forensic Medicine Worldwide

Abstract

Clinical forensic medicine is a term that has become widely used only in the last two decades or so, although the phrase has been in use at least since 1949 when the Association of Police Surgeons—a UK-based body—was first established. It is now commonly used to refer to the branch of medicine that involves an interaction among the law, the judiciary, and the police generally in respect to living persons. Thus clinical forensic medicine must be distinguished from the other major branch of forensic medicine: forensic pathology. A forensic pathologist does not (in general) deal with living individuals, whereas a forensic physician’ s role may be much broader.KeywordsSexual AssaultForensic MedicineForensic PathologistMetropolitan PolicePolice CustodyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.