Azfar Mateen1, Pradeep Yadav2, Berendra Yadav3, Ajay Kumar Singh4
BACKGROUND
Post-mortem examination which involves external examination as well as
dissection of various body cavities is being conducted pan India as part of
investigation process in cases of suspected deaths. The present systematic review
was conducted to assess the knowledge and attitude of medical undergraduate
students towards post-mortem as these traits will influence the quality of autopsy
reports being prepared by them in their professional careers.
METHODS
We conducted the search, involving both electronic as well as manual scientific
databases for our present study. Only articles in English were selected. Any
disagreements were resolved through consensus.
RESULTS
Initial search yielded 163 articles out of which 13 were selected for the present
study. More than 50 % of the studies discuss the reasons for not specializing in
forensic medicine while 4 studies also discussed the suggestion for improvement
of autopsy procedures. Most of the participants in the selected studies have
reasonable knowledge regarding autopsy. In two studies, more than 50 % of the
participants preferred virtual autopsy over traditional autopsy. 97.6 % of the
participants of one study were of the opinion that autopsy should be scrapped
from the medical curriculum. The analysis of the present review has shown that
though the undergraduate medical students possess fair amount of knowledge
regarding the post-mortem, they lack the skill and confidence in conducting the
postmortem examination independently. It is necessary to expose the
undergraduate medical students for more training of post-mortem examination
and also to upgrade the mortuary so as to improve the autopsy procedure.
CONCLUSIONS
Autopsy training is an integral part of the forensic medicine curriculum and the
same is appreciated by the undergraduate medical students. We recommended
that enough exposure to autopsy should be provided along with providing proper
emotional support. Most important is to upgrade the infrastructure of mortuary
and motivation of doctors for conducting medico-legal autopsy.
