Legal medicine and medical law

Abstract

Legal medicine has attracted very little reference within legal texts. It has attracted specialist recognition in some jurisdictions, such as the USA, but this is not universal. Part of the problem is lack of agreement concerning a working definition. Legal medicine is both reflective of an overarching medical discipline that incorporates both legal training, as one arm, and forensic training as its partner, as adjunctive qualifications to medical training and experience, to assist in the delivery of justice and legal administration. Legal medicine is the broad concept incorporating both legal and forensic training. In its more confined definition, legal medicine deals with those aspects of medicine referable to the delivery of health care, civil law, and tort law, as opposed to forensic medicine, which is more referable to the criminal system. Together legal medicine and forensic medicine contribute to the overarching concept of legal medicine as a medical specialty to provide expert medical input into legal deliberation and interpretation.