Search

The Death Certificate (DC) is an important medical-legal. However, despite its importance, the professionals involved are not well trained and consequently there exist many errors in completion. This situation can cause misclassification in mortality statistics, but also it means that many natural deaths end up being studied by the medical examiner, entailing a waste of resources. An analysis of 1974 DCs in Madrid is carried out to assess the quality of the completion, discover the main errors in the certificates and analyse possible improvement strategies. The study highlights that the demographic and personal information about the deceased is mostly correct; in 16,2 % of the cases the official document was not used; 91 % of the DCs in the sample have a certain degree of error (major or minor); and 38,4 % of the documents chain of causes were incorrect. The main measure proposed is increased training for certifiers, which should begin with activities at undergraduate level and continue later with periodic training workshops. In addition, we consider it essential to digitalise DCs in Spain. This would greatly facilitate completion. It is also proposed that medical examiners use, in Spain, a document similar to the official DC so that the statistics of violent and natural deaths which have required the medical examiners’ intervention will improve., Depto. de Cirugía, Fac. de Medicina, TRUE, pub, APC financiada por la UCM

Background: Fall prevention is an important indicator of the quality of patient care. Prevention includes the use of adequate footwear. Our objective is to determine the differences in the number of falls between patients with “adequate footwear” and “non slip socks”, and their associated consequences, to support their use in the prevention of falls among hospitalized patients. Methods: This is an observational prospective study on inpatient falls. Patient characteristics, fall circumstances, and injuries were collected through Clinical Report Forms, a review of fall reports, and medical records. Admitted patients over 18 years old were recruited from Geriatric and Internal Medicine Units over a brief period of 3 months. Results: A total of 158 hospitalized patients were recruited. In total, 77 patients (48.73%) were assigned to the non-slip socks group, and 81 (51.27%) were assigned to the adequate footwear group. There were 21 falls during the study period, all of which were experienced by the adequate footwear group (p < 0.0001). The mean age of the patients who fell was 83.14 (range 60–100) years old. The most frequent reasons for admission among the patients who fell were COVID-19 infection (19%) and oncological complications (19%). Overall, 61.9% of patients had a high risk of falling. Most falls (76.1%) occurred in patient rooms, and most of these occurred while wandering around. The most frequent reason for falls was slipping (14/21). For 16 of 21 patients, falls did not have immediate consequences, while 5 had contusions and 1 suffered a wound. Nobody needed to be admitted to the ER or suffered external hemorrhages or loss of consciousness. Conclusions: Non-slip socks represent an adequate alternative to well-fitting rubber-soled footwear. It seems that non-slip socks could prevent falls among hospitalized patients; nevertheless, further studies are necessary to clarify their role in preventing hospital falls and reducing injury rates., Depto. de Medicina Legal, Psiquiatría y Patología, Fac. de Medicina, TRUE, pub, Descuento UCM

Adaptar el sistema tradicional de aprendizaje a las necesidades actuales del alumnado empleando la metodología flipped classroom en el laboratorio de Química Analítica I, con el objetivo de fomentar el aprendizaje utilizando herramientas digitales.

CRUE-CSIC (Acuerdos Transformativos 2021), The completion of the death certificate is indispensable in Spain for a death to be recorded in the civil registry. Occasionally, doctors may be reluctant to sign a death certificate due to possible legal consequences. This study seeks to analyse the possible judicial consequences doctors may face upon filling out this medico-legal document. Sentences published on the Judicial Power's website between 2009 and 2019 containing the term "death certificate" were analysed. From a total of 2100 sentences examined, only 15 were found to contain the term "death certificate" as part of the claim. In only 7 of these cases the claim was made against the physician, and in 5 the physician was found guilty. Three of them concluded falsity via criminal proceedings, one via administrative proceedings for refusing to sign the certificate and one through civil proceedings for filling out an erroneous antecedent cause of death. In view of the above, it can be inferred that the completion of the death certificate poses few judicial consequences for physicians. In addition, this study reveals the importance of the death certificate document as evidence in judicial proceedings., Depto. de Medicina Legal, Psiquiatría y Patología, Fac. de Medicina, TRUE, pub

CRUE-CSIC (Acuerdos Transformativos 2022), This article aims to analyse the excited delirium syndrome, especially, when Law Enforcement Officers have to make use of force and deaths in custody occur. Through a bibliographic review, inferences have been obtained to identify, in first place, what a death in custody is and the differences between positional asphyxia and excited delirium syndrome. Subsequently, we have summarized the major findings that the medical examiner should look for in order to diagnose the excited delirium syndrome from the scene examination, the autopsy and the complementary analysis. Finally, we propose some directives that may help to avoid the death of these subjects and to study them in case they occur., Depto. de Medicina, Depto. de Medicina Legal, Psiquiatría y Patología, Fac. de Medicina, TRUE, pub

ForenCAPS es el canal de YouTube del Laboratorio de Antropología y Odontología Forense de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. A través de él, queremos mostraros nuestro trabajo en forma de cápsulas cortas de temas de concretos de las ciencias forenses. Tenemos la identificación humana, la odontología forense y el estudio de lesiones como base de trabajo, pero usando las nuevas tecnologías disponibles podemos hilar mucho más fino. Usando este canal os contaremos todas las novedades de este fascinante campo de trabajo para que aprender sea algo muy sencillo y nunca te quedes con la curiosidad