Medico-legal documentation of rape or sexual assault: are community-service doctors equipped for the task?
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 medic...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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AOSIS
2018-03-01
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| Series: | South African Family Practice |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://safpj.co.za/index.php/safpj/article/view/4680 |
| _version_ | 1811273259568594944 |
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| author | Lamaine Fouche Johan Bezuidenhout Chantelle Liebenberg Anthonio Oladele Adefuye |
| author_facet | Lamaine Fouche Johan Bezuidenhout Chantelle Liebenberg Anthonio Oladele Adefuye |
| author_sort | Lamaine Fouche |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | 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 |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T22:55:55Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-9859051ca4234d2a9587ee7c6ffd412d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2078-6190 2078-6204 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T22:55:55Z |
| publishDate | 2018-03-01 |
| publisher | AOSIS |
| record_format | Article |
| series | South African Family Practice |
| spelling | doaj.art-9859051ca4234d2a9587ee7c6ffd412d2022-12-22T03:13:12ZengAOSISSouth African Family Practice2078-61902078-62042018-03-0160110.4102/safp.v60i1.46803829Medico-legal documentation of rape or sexual assault: are community-service doctors equipped for the task?Lamaine Fouche0Johan Bezuidenhout1Chantelle Liebenberg2Anthonio Oladele Adefuye3University of the Free StateUniversity of the Free StateUniversity of the Free StateUniversity of the Free StateBackground: 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: 10.1080/20786190.2017.1348046https://safpj.co.za/index.php/safpj/article/view/4680clinical forensic medicinecommunity-service doctorsmedical trainingmedico-legal documentationsexual assault |
| spellingShingle | Lamaine Fouche Johan Bezuidenhout Chantelle Liebenberg Anthonio Oladele Adefuye Medico-legal documentation of rape or sexual assault: are community-service doctors equipped for the task? South African Family Practice clinical forensic medicine community-service doctors medical training medico-legal documentation sexual assault |
| title | Medico-legal documentation of rape or sexual assault: are community-service doctors equipped for the task? |
| title_full | Medico-legal documentation of rape or sexual assault: are community-service doctors equipped for the task? |
| title_fullStr | Medico-legal documentation of rape or sexual assault: are community-service doctors equipped for the task? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Medico-legal documentation of rape or sexual assault: are community-service doctors equipped for the task? |
| title_short | Medico-legal documentation of rape or sexual assault: are community-service doctors equipped for the task? |
| title_sort | medico legal documentation of rape or sexual assault are community service doctors equipped for the task |
| topic | clinical forensic medicine community-service doctors medical training medico-legal documentation sexual assault |
| url | https://safpj.co.za/index.php/safpj/article/view/4680 |
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