Legal and Forensic Medicine Specialty in Spain: the consolidation by the medical residency system

Abstract

The specialty of Legal and Forensic Medicine (Medicina Legal y Forense [MLF]) emerged through the need for doctors to serve the Justice Administration as advisors to the Courts and Tribunals in the resolution of medical/biological issues arising in the field of law enforcement, establishing a bridge between medicine and law. MLF started in 1843 when Pere Mata's plan to reform the teaching of Medicine at Spanish universities included MLF as an individual discipline in the studies of Medicine and Surgery, and the first MLF chair was created at the Universidad Central of Madrid. Later, in 1855, the role of the forensic doctor was established with the enactment of the Health Law, which led to the creation of the Corps of Forensic Doctors (Cuerpo de Médicos Forenses [CMF]) in 1862.1 Since then, academic legal medicine and the professional legal medicine practiced by the forensic doctors of the Justice Administration have become somewhat separated. On the one hand, academic MLF, under the university faculty, has been primarily concerned with the provision of undergraduate teaching, as well as MLF research and knowledge transfer. On the other hand, the practical aspects involved in assisting the Justice Administration has fallen in the main to professional MLF.