L'obstacle médicolégal, pour un mode d'emploi

Many writers of death certificates ignore the original intent of the concept and underestimate the challenge of requesting a forensic autopsy when the cause of death is unknown. In the absence of a legal framework, non-existent to date, formally setting out the situations under a medicolegal obstacle, our way of certification of death is based on a subjective interpretation of its terms of implementation. The identified publications reflect the reality and the slow evolution of the practice of emergency or general practitioners. Discrepancies between the data of autopsy and diagnoses made after an external review can be obvious. The medicolegal autopsy is a final consultation. In France, the number of autopsies suffers dramatically of the comparison to scandinavian or anglo-saxon models and, due to low number of autopsies ordered, epidemiological statistics does not reflect the reality of death, the control of medical activity is not totally guaranteed and it is doubtful whether the homicide hypothesis is excluded in a violent death.