00701 - Forensic Medicine (A)

Academic Year 2026/2027

  • Docente: Susi Pelotti
  • Credits: 3
  • SSD: MEDS-25/A
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: In-person learning (entirely or partially)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: Single cycle degree programme (LMCU) in Medicine and Surgery (cod. 5904)

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to: - evaluate the legal and ethical aspects of healthcare, such as professional liability, confidentiality, and mandatory medical treatments; - acquire the theoretical and practical concepts of consent/refusal to receive medical treatment, advance directives, and shared care planning; - fulfill legal obligations: preparing certificates, mandatory reporting, including medical reports and reporting to the Judicial Authority; - understand the crimes that may be prosecuted ex officio and upon complaint; - understand the medico-legal aspects of abortion, voluntary termination of pregnancy, and conscientious objection under Law 194; - learn about forensic toxicology, forensic genetics, forensic traumatology, and thanatology; - acquire knowledge of social insurance: accidents at work, occupational diseases, and disability.

Course contents

Medical liability.

Causality.

Crimes against life and against individual safe, sexual crimes.

Collection of biological sample, forensic genetics

Voluntary termination of pregnancy

Reports to Judicial Authority and certificate.

Professional confidentiality.

Informed consent. Doctor-patients relationship.

Medical Deontology.

Readings/Bibliography

Upgraded medico legal textbooks. Medical Code.

Teaching methods

lessons, discussion of casework, judicial decisions analysis

Assessment methods

Written test for the Integrated Course with 64 multiple-choice questions (4 pre-assigned answers for each question, of which only one is correct). The score is 0.5 for a correct answer, 0 for an incorrect or missing answer.
Students will be asked 32 questions on Forensic Medicine and 32 questions on Occupational Medicine.
To obtain the maximum grade with honors, students must correctly answer a total number of questions greater than or equal to 61.
Intermediate grades will be proportional to the number of correct questions.
Time allowed for the test: 60 minutes.
For students from previous academic years, the exam format used at that time will be maintained.

Teaching tools

video, slides

Office hours

See the website of Susi Pelotti