Child Abuse and Dental Practice: Finding the Nexus

Many reports indicate that children are abused everyday worldwide. They are abused in many different ways. Literature suggests that the numbers of reported abuses against children are a mere tip of an iceberg accordingly, there are many unreported cases - some are hidden or covered. Thus, child abuse becomes a social problem. Many seem to ignore child abuses, others of course will justify. Admittedly there are a few who will hide such abuses under a carpet or give a blind eye. In some societies child abuse has become a part of an accepted cultural practice- for example corporal punishments or female genital mutilations. Fortunately, there are some of us in the society who will voice against abuse of children. The social responses to child abuse are reflected in clinical sets up in similar ways. This means that some clinicians will ignore abuses while others may not care. The problem becomes aggravated in clinical scenarios especially when the clinician is not trained in identifying an imminent child abuse. In this context, this paper seeks to find a connection between clinical dental practice and child abuse. In short, I will argue and demonstrate in this paper that the presentations of cases of child abuse are not uncommon to the dental clinician, but that they are often times presented with alternate histories so that they can be easily missed by the clinician, if not looked through forensic lenses

Medical negligence and malpractice litigations in Sri Lanka: why it is a tip of an iceberg?

Many have raised their eye brows at the alarming number of medical malpractice, negligence and medical errors that occur daily world over. Despite advances in medicine, cases of medical negligence and malpractice seem unavoidable. Majority of such cases are attributed to personal negligence, recklessness or wilful blindness of the practitioner. Indeed, the development of law especially the common law related to handling emerging challenges arise with medical malpractice seem to curtail the purported damages that can be faced by people in many countries. However, ironically neither the law nor the jurisprudence in Sri Lanka appear to proactively engage in solving issues related to medical negligence and malpractice

Spheno -Occipital Synchondrosis for the estimation of age in a Forensic Context : A preliminary case series study on a sample of Sinhalese in Sri Lanka

Introduction- It is evident that there are numerous approaches employed by many different researchers to ascertain the age of the unknown. Among those, the examination of the spheno- occipital synchondrosis has also been an area of focus by both forensic scientists as well as anatomists. However, despite many number of studies available in the literature for many different other populations, for Sri Lanka, up to now there are no published studies using spheno- occipital synchondrosis as a marker to estimate the age of an individual. Aim- This study therefore aims at obtaining a crude idea about the ages at which the spheno-­ occipital joint completes among a Sri Lankan sample. As the available literature does not cover Sri Lankan Sinhalese adults, the results of this case series evaluation will undoubtedly provide a forensic practitioner a rough idea regarding the chronological ages at which the fusion occurs at the joint. Methods- Twenty one Sinhalese male skulls and eleven Sinhalese female skulls collected over the years for anatomical and autopsy purposes whose ages were known and ranged between twenty years to sixty five years were examined for this study using the method described by Moore and Jenson et al. Results and Conclusion- With the preliminary findings it is evident that the spheno- occipital synchondrosis of Sinhalese are fused at the age of 20 or above when evaluated ectocranially under naked eye. However, this may be a crude opinion where a larger representative sample needs to be studied prior to generalising the age of fusion

A review of the use of spheno-occipital synchondrosis as an age indicator and its implications for Sri Lanka

A spheno - occipital synchondrosis is a cartilaginous joint, a growth centre found in the base of the skull between the basilar part of the occipital bone and the body of the sphenoid bone joining them together with a hyaline cartilage. This joint is important in cranio facial development for both vertical axis and horizontal plains resulting in the increase of facial height and width. The hyaline cartilage as usual is gradually replaced by bone with age and this very process has been used as a method to estimate the age of an unknown victim in forensic practice. This paper attempts to review the existing literature on the use of spheno-occipital synchondrosis as an age indicator in forensic practice with a view to identify its strengths, weaknesses and possible challenges one may face in using it for practical purposes in Sri Lanka

Facing Challenges in Forensic Dental Age Estimations of Adults

Introduction Referrals for age estimations are common for forensic dental practitioners. Out of many service provisions rendered by forensic dental practitioners to law enforcement agencies and courts, estimation of ages of both young and adults remains high. Among the many instances where age estimations are required, child labour and child employment, sexual abuse or rape, juvenile justice whether general criminal law or special criminal law for children will be applied, issue of birth certificates and passports, assessing general criminal liability or doli incapax, adoption, sponsoring for citizenships, eligibility for parents pensions/widow fund, marriage and of course in identification of the dead are quite frequent. This means that the forensic dental practitioner is entrusted with the estimation of age of an unknown to the nearest accuracy with highest scientific reliability. Certainly, the cases that are referred can include those that are living or dead

Extending services beyond a traditional frame: the role of a university forensic department

This paper identifies the role of a University Forensic Department in extending its services beyond a traditional frame. The arguments in favour of this thesis are formulated focussing the Department of Forensic Medicine at University of Peradeniya. It is reasonably foreseen that any other university department could contemplate in the same lines if they so choose

Chain of Custody in Forensic Practice: The Need for Standard of Practice Guidelines in Sri Lanka

This article discusses the notion of 'chain of custody' in forensic practice and its significance in the law of evidence. The need for this discussion arose from the numerous newspaper articles and blogs that highlighted and critiqued handling of forensic samples in Sri Lanka especially related to a recent case that is under investigation

Probative value of medical evidence towards establishing ultimate probandum and penultimate probanda in a court room

This article attempts to re-emphasize the probative value of medical evidence especially in a criminal court of adversarial nature, towards establishing the ultimate probandum. Further it is intended in this paper to identify a few issues pertaining to the effective use of medical evidence in the Sri Lankan judicial system for this purpose (in proof of a probandum) and propose remedial alternatives with an intention to constructively improve the system

Identifying voids and remedying defects in forensic investigations in Sri Lanka

The object and purpose of this article is to highlight some major defects in respect to forensic investigations in Sri Lanka and to propose remedial measures to those identified voids. The substances for this article are those that the author personally observed as a member of a forensic investigation team, as an academic in forensic medical science and as a lawyer

Building Bridges To Bridging Gaps: Disseminating knowledge of Forensic Medicine and Sciences to Lawyers, Judges and the General Public

There are a very few notions that many of us agree, unarguably. The fact that our society is "highly traditional and bureaucratic" is one such entity. It is not the aim of this essay to contend why our society is traditional and bureaucratic in an analytic perspective, but, empirically it is pertinent to examine and investigate how this traditional structure has affected engendering "gaps" between medico-legal métiers. I am not attempting to endorse Derrida in de-structuring the entire construction here, but to elucidate some ill-effects it has delivered and to postulate propositions to proceed in bridging some extant vital gaps and voids