Pediatric | Limits and Controversies

Chapter 1—Pediatric Forensic Pathology: Some Background

Chapter Overview
Clinical medicine serves patients; forensic pathology serves the state to find out why its citizens die. Being involved in investigating possible crime is very different from treating patients. Medicine has developed quite a strong evidence base to its practice, and this has not been mirrored to the same extent in forensic pathology. The massive expansion in the size of the knowledge base of medicine has had implications for forensic pathology. Forensic pathology is a very small operational medical specialty; pediatric forensic pathology is a subset of cases within forensic pathology, and is not an operational specialty. Knowledge in forensic pathology evolves, not always in a uniform forward progression.

Introduction
Medicine exists to serve patients. Starting with doctors’ training as medical students, everything revolves around the patient. Doctor’s obligations to patients are central. This culture, imbued during medical training, survives intact through to the practice of virtually every branch of medicine, including all the disciplines within pathology...