Legal Medicine (M.D./D.O.) Physician

Definition

Legal Medicine is a special field of medicine that focuses on various aspects of medicine and law. Historically, the practice of legal medicine made contributions to medicine as a scientific instrument to solve criminal perplexities. Since World War II, the domain of legal medicine has broadened to include not only aspects of medical science to solve legal and criminal problems but aspects of law as it applies to medicine. Legal Medicine continues to grow as medicolegal issues like medical malpractice and liability, government regulation of health care, issues of tort reform, and moral and ethical complexities presented by technological advances become increasingly prominent. Many medical schools have implemented courses which supply medicolegal instruction for medical students, and many law schools now offer medicolegal courses. Also, dual degree programs in law and medicine have been created to assist physicians to bridge the gap between medicine and the law.