“It is the contribution of medicine, technology and related sciences to questions of law, the drafting of laws, the administration of justice and the consolidation of education” (Genival Veloso de França) In the past, although forensic medicine was part of the curriculum of medical schools, it was limited to tanatology (a branch of forensic medicine, which deals with death and related medico-legal problems). This limitation of the medical specialty in question deprived the right to receive evidence when legal issues subordinated to the cause of death, which were criminal, civil, labor or other. Would you like to know more about the field of forensic medicine, its specialties and the job market for those who want to devote themselves to this career? Click below and register now for IEFAP`s graduate program in forensic medicine and medical expertise! Forensic medicine has a wide application in jurisprudence, whether criminal, civil or labour, assists in the application of laws and enables the judiciary to conform to its social and constitutional master. The judiciary, from the investigation phase to the procedural sector, needs evidence that is carried out in cooperation with medical experts as accomplices of the judiciary. I`m sure you`ve seen a movie or series about criminal investigations once in your life. And in them is very often the appearance of a professional: the legal expert. The work of forensic pathologists arouses the curiosity of many people around the world. However, the details of its performance are often unclear, even for those working in the healthcare sector. This complexity and the multiplicity of subjects have led to the need to consider forensic medicine as a specialty capable of training and empowering professionals to perform tasks that, in addition to very specific knowledge and technical skills, require great scientific rigour, constant updating and a great capacity for liberation and impartiality, so as not to compromise the public interest. Individual rights and therefore justice. Forensic medicine in Brazil, aware of the inclusion of new techniques, advances in science and multiprofessional contribution, has made a small progress in the field of expertise, thanks to the performance of some public sectors in the creation, restoration and handling of laboratories, specialized institutions and the retraining of technical staff. It is believed that only with the full participation of these resources will society resist the perverse result of terrible violence that grows and torments.
Nothing is fairer than to invest more and more in technical and scientific contribution and to support the judicial administration of investigative elements of transcendent value during the procedural assessment, because one of the tasks of the judge among many others is to seek the truth about the facts. In the future, all these enormous scientific and technological resources available for testing will certainly be used; such as biomolecular analysis, biochemistry of drug detection and even nuclear energy, as well as modern computers, scintigraphs and magnetic resonance tomographs as an indispensable contribution to public and socio-political interests. Forensic medicine in the experimental field in Brazil is still in its infancy and hesitant, but some lines of research are beginning to develop in university centers. In the field of education, where forensic medicine contributes more eloquently to the adaptation of positive law institutions, everything will be done on the basis of the more concrete requirements that these legal forms will make and the development of forensic thinking itself; Issues related to genetic engineering are increasingly coming to the fore, such as those of transgenic animals, human cloning and gene therapy or, in the most sensitive cases, human reproduction, which focus mainly on certain issues relating to the legal nature and fate of frozen embryos. In pedagogical terms, Brazilian forensic medicine experienced more enlightened days, when the chairs were led by the great teachers who created around them important students and respectable schools.