Jakarta, IO – Thanks to a recent internal police scandal, the term “forensic” gets quite bandied around in social media. Forensic processes are led by doctors with forensic medical background. In general, “forensic medicine” is the field of medicine that studies the implementation of medical principles for legal purposes, whether civil or criminal, in order to support justice. Because of this skill, forensic experts are frequently involved in legal investigations.
“No matter what a doctor does, there will be legal implications to them – for example, when one performs an operation without informed consent from the patient or their family. However, this does not apply in an emergency life-saving situation, because doctors cannot be charged for their attempts in such a condition. Therefore, doctors should fully understand medico-legal procedures. Composed of both “medicine” and “law”, these procedures are related to medical services for the interest of legal or judicial processes. Competences relating to same refer to the Medical Standard of Indonesian Doctors (Standar Kompetensi Dokter Indonesia – “SKDI”) and the Indonesian Code of Medical Ethics (Kode Etik Kedokteran Indonesia – “Kodeki”),” explained dr. Yudy, Sp.F.M., Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital Jakarta’s forensic and medico-legal specialist, in the “Medico-legal Procedures in Medical Practice” live IG session held on Monday (15/08/2022).
Doctors are obliged to bolster the discovery of justice, according to Article 133 Paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code. To be exact, it says, “If the investigator, in the interest of justice, handles a victim, whether of injury, poisoning, or death caused by the occurrence of a criminal action, they have the right to request expert information from a judicial medical expert or doctor, and/or to other experts.”