FORENSIC MEDICINE EXAMINATION SYLLABUS
1. Forensic medicine - definition, tasks, problems, methods, contents and importance.
2. The main objects in Forensic Medicine. Medical report in Forensic Medicine- structure.
Expert witness.
3. Forensic traumatology - terminology. Mechanical injuries –types of injuries, types of
forces, types of wounds.
4. Blunt trauma – bruises, scrapes, contusions, lacerations.
5. Closed and open fractures, skull fractures. Brain injuries, neck, spinal and chest
injuries, blund abdomen trauma.
6. Fall injuries.
7. Transportation injuries –road traffic accidents.
8. Railway and motor cycles injuries.
9. Edged wounds – types. Incised and stab wounds.
10. Single and double edge wounds, sabre wounds.
11. Firearm examination (wound ballistics) . Types of firearms.
12. Entrance and exit wounds from shotguns and rifled weapons.
13. Explosives. The doctor’s duty in firearm injuries and deaths.
14. Vital injuries and injuries after death.
15. Mechanical injuries - causes and genesis of death.
16. Mechanical asphyxia. Stages. Classification. Morphology.
17. Strangulation – types, genesis. Traumatic asphyxia.
18. Other form of asphyxia – suffocation (smothering), choking, drowning.
19. Injuries due to heat and and cold. Causes of death.
20. Electricity death and death from lightning.
21. Forensic toxicology – general aspects of poisoning, the toxic and fatal dose.
Conditions for toxic effect.
22. The doctor’s duty in cases of suspected poisoning. Samples required for
toxicological analysis.
23. Acid and base poisoning, mercury poisoning,
24. Carbon monoxide poisoning, hydrogen sulfide gas, food poisoning.
25. Ethanol and methanol poisoning.
26. Drug and narcotic poisoning.
27. Forensic examination of living patients. Physical assault.
28. Forensic examination of victims of sexual assault and assailants.
29. Pregnancy, abortion and birth. Morphology in dead and living women.
30. Forensic serology. DNA expertise.
31. Trace evidence and secretions. Blood stains.
32. Identification of living persons and death bodies.
33. Sceletalized remains.
34. Sudden nonviolent unexpected death.
35. Infanticide.
2
36. Medical aspects of death - cellular and somatic death. Diagnosis of death. Brain death.
37. Medico-legal investigation of death. Death certification.
38. Changes after death –early changes.
39. Putrefaction, mummification, adipocere, skeletalization.
40. Legal aspects of medical practice. Medical law – definition, contents, problems.
41. Requirements for licensing and registration of the doctors.
42. Duties of physicians in general, to the sick and to each other.
43. Medical confidentiality. Legal requirements of disclosure the medical facts.
44. Consent to medical treatment. Obligatory medical treatment.
45. Medical malpractice –medical negligence and professional misconduct.
46. Criminal abortion. Legal termination of pregnancy. Methods of performing illegal
abortion.
47. Accidental cases in medical practice.
48. Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
49. Tissue and organ transplantation.
50. Forensic practice and documentation in medical malpractice.
The exam is a test in the end of the course.
Literature:
Compulsory:
1/ Simpson’s Forensic Medicine, Bernard Knight, 11th ed., Arnold, 1997, 212.
2/ Simpson’s Forensic Medicine, Richard Shepherd, 12th ed. Arnold, 2003, 196.
Advisable:
3/ Forensic Pathology, Second Edition, Vincent J. Di Maio, Dominick Di Majo, CRC
press – Boca Raton, London, New York, Washington, DC.2001