Common questions in the corridors of courthouses, or among otorhinolaryngologists, are: “Is there any relationship between Otorhinolaryngology and Forensic Medicine?” and “To carry out a medical examination due to an otorhinolaryngological problem, is it necessary for the expert to be an otorhinolaryngologist?”. To try to answer these questions, we must first clarify the specialty of Legal Medicine and the concept of medical expertise.

There are more or less complete definitions of what Legal Medicine is, and one of them would be that of Odon Ramos Maranhão: “Legal Medicine is the science of applying medico-biological knowledge to the interests of constituted law and the law constituting”.[1] Concerning established law, the application of Legal Medicine occurs whenever the judicial authority seeks medical reports for the application of the law – be it criminal law, Civil law, or those listed by social security, administrative law, labor law etc.[2] In other words, whenever it is necessary to assess the severity of a bodily injury, the consequences caused by a personal injury, or the resulting disabilities in the social security and labor sphere, Forensic Medicine will be called upon to make its contribution.

The evolution of medical science, however, made Legal Medicine, like other specialties, interdisciplinary – as Oliver Schroeder Jr. well defined in 1974, training specialists to meet the common interests of Medicine and Law.[2] Due to this interdisciplinarity, Legal Medicine is today a multicurricular science with doctrinal foundations, as Flamínio Fávero[3] anticipated. Forensic Medicine, therefore, has its doctrine, which brings together all the different skills of other specialties into specific methods to meet the interests of Justice. Regarding this multidisciplinary knowledge, the parts related to Otorhinolaryngology are exemplary.

Those who work in Legal Medicine have expertise in human beings. Expertise is “seeing, hearing, examining, describing what you saw and examined, understanding, interpreting, and reporting”[4] to a judicial authority regarding a medical fact. After the examination has been completed, the expert informs the requesting authority through a medico-legal report. It is clear that when this medical fact involves an otorhinolaryngological issue, the Forensic Medicine expert must have sufficient knowledge of otorhinolaryngology.

If the specialist in Forensic Medicine is also a specialist in Otorhinolaryngology, his task will be easier. If this is not the case, their knowledge is insufficient, but if the situation is very complex, they can always consult a specialist in the field to obtain reliable information to help resolve the problem.

Concerning the various aforementioned fields of law, the intrinsic relationship between Forensic Medicine and Otorhinolaryngology is manifested in all of them – with benefits for otorhinolaryngology when using the common medico-legal methods. Another important aspect is when the otorhinolaryngologist faces legal proceedings for medical malpractice. To make a ruling on the case, the judge will have to resort to an expert examination that proves the existence of harm to the patient and the causal link between this harm and the medical act (in this case, an otorhinolaryngological act). The person who will carry out this examination to assist the judge (a layman in Medicine) in their conclusions is precisely the Forensic Medicine specialist.

Article published online:
11 April 2024

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