Clinical forensic medicine
Assessing injuries and medico-legal incapacity, sexual violence, child abuse, intimate-partner violence, intoxication and age estimation.
18 pages
Finding
- Abusive head trauma (shaken baby)Brain injury inflicted on an infant or young child by shaking, impact or both; it often causes…
- Child maltreatment: signs that should raise concernInjuries, patterns and accounts that suggest physical abuse of a child and oblige the doctor to…
- Fabricated or induced illness in a childA carer invents, exaggerates or causes symptoms in a child, leading to needless tests and…
- Fractures and visceral injuries in child abuseIn infants, classic metaphyseal lesions and posterior rib fractures strongly suggest abuse…
- Neglect and starvationNeglect means failing to give a child, an older person or a dependant the food, hygiene or care…
Method
- Age estimation in the livingHow the expert estimates the age of a person without documents: physical exam, teeth, hand X-ray…
- Incapacidad médico-legal: what it is and how it is setThe number of days the expert estimates the harm from an injury lasts; it is not the work sick…
Topic
- Child homicideThe violent death of a young child is usually caused by a carer, often without visible injuries…
- Intimate-partner and gender-based violenceHow to detect, care for, document and protect a person who suffers violence from a partner or…
- Medico-legal sequelae: deformity, functional impairment, lossThe lasting harm of an injury; the Penal Code punishes deformity, functional or mental…
Procedure
- Clinical exam for intoxication (embriaguez)An exam that documents whether a person shows signs of intoxication by alcohol or other…
- Examining a living victim of injury (lesiones personales)An exam requested by the authorities to describe a person's injuries, their probable cause, the…
- Examining detainees and documenting torture (Istanbul Protocol)How to examine a person deprived of liberty and document possible torture or ill-treatment…
- Sexual violence: samples and evidenceWhich samples are collected from a victim of sexual violence, why as early as possible, and how…
- The forensic exam after sexual violenceThe clinical and forensic exam of a victim of sexual violence: emergency care first, consent…
Law
- Código Penal: lesiones personales (arts. 111–121)Articles 111 to 121 of Law 599 of 2000 punish harm to the body or health according to the days…
- Femicide in Colombian law (Ley 1761 de 2015)Since 2015, killing a woman because she is a woman or because of her gender identity has been a…
- Resolution 459 of 2012: the health-care protocol for sexual violenceA Ministry of Health rule that obliges insurers and providers to treat victims of sexual…
A to Z
Educational content on forensic and legal medicine; not legal advice and no substitute for the technical guides of Colombia's National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences. Laws change: each page links the official text and says when it was last checked. For a real case, follow the guide in force and ask the competent authority.
Representative model, for educational purposes only.