Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: The death certificate is a document consisting of the deceased individual’s basic information and identification which is filled out, registered and signed by a doctor. the World health organization’s policies in their health planning, provide a suitable database with knowledge of the required elements for planners and other authorized information demanders. During a multi-year cooperation between various organizations, the first uniformed death certificate according the ICD-10 standard got published in the country in the year 2004.
Methods: This is a retrospective study which is about all of the deceased individuals in  Tajrish and Modares Tehran hospitals from april 2013 until the march 2014 who had death certificates. In this study the data related to 777 individual’s death certificates and medical files was analyzed. The sampling method was census and all the cases in the study’s time period who had death certificates were studied. The cases that had a gap in their required information were ruled out of the study. The data that included age, sex, place of death, issuing doctor’s expertise, general information and the cause of death was extracted from the archived files.

Background: Determination of mortality causes precisely, is very important in developing countries. Mortality rate is a helpful index for evaluating the quality of health in every society. However, recording of life events as well as mortality rates are difficult and conducted only in a few developing countries which account for a large percentage of the world’s mortality. Thus, it was attempted to conduct a study on mortality cases of under 18 year’s old corpses referred to the dissection laboratory of forensic medicine in Tehran from 2014 to 2015.
Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, all cases of accidental deaths less than 18 years old which were referred to forensic medicine in Tehran have examined. All mortality data between April 2014 and April 2015 was completed by a questionnaire. This data were classified by age, sex, cause of referral, type of death, underlying disease, and cause of death based on autopsy results and positive findings of autopsy, pathology, and toxicology.
Results: In 2014 and 2015, 495 and 508 cases of under 18 years old were sent to the dissection laboratory of forensic medicine in Tehran, consequently. The mortality rate of 520 males and 483 females was recorded and it has risen from 2014 to 2015. The most common mortality causes are accidents, suspicious death, suicide, and car accidents.
Conclusion: The results showed that the mortality rate in males was higher than females, which is in line with the global findings. This may be due to cultural issues or the vulnerability of males. Study on causes of deaths, which recorded over two years showed that deaths in Tehran province are due to accidents, falls, strangulation, life-threatening poisoning and electrocution, birth disorders and suicides, which requires more studies on these subjects.

Background: Medical malpractice is one of the most important legal issues in medicine committed more or less by physicians. The medical staff has inadequate or deficient awareness of medical errors and their importance. Therefore, this study investigated the frequency of medical malpractices/errors resulting in death in files referred to the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization.
Methods: The study population in this descriptive cross-sectional research consisted of all doctors who had been sued in Tehran's Legal Medicine Organization (Forensic Committees of Tehran Province) from the first day of July 2018 to the end of December 2018. The study was carried out in and under supervision and support of the Legal Medicine Research Center. Data were collected using a checklist of the files from Tehran's Legal Medicine Organization.
Results: The results showed that most medical errors are of organizational types. Major medical failures occur in university-affiliated hospitals among the male technical staff aged 41-50 years with a work experience less than 6 years. Most complaints were recorded against general practitioners, general surgeons, and anesthesiologists, respectively. The smallest percentage of the complaints related to orthopedics, urologists, and ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialists.
Conclusion: The results of the study indicated that most of medical failures have of an organizational nature and occur in university hospitals among male technical officials who are in the fifth decade of life with a low work experience. So, paying attention to these issues can help the better selection of technical officials. The technical authorities of the hospitals must be careful about the responsibilities given to them. In order to reduce the failure of the technical authorities of the hospitals, doctors with a high standard of service should be appointed as technical officers. These doctors ought to possess legal knowledge and be familiar with the course of complaints filed in the judiciary.

Background: Today, despite the efforts of the medical community and health staff, the rate of dissatisfaction and complaints among patients is increasing and this highlights the importance of evaluating its related factors. The aim of this study was to analytically investigate complaints against ophthalmologists which were referred to the Legal Medicine Organization of Iran in Tehran during 2017-2019.
Methods: In this cross-sectional (analytical-descriptive) study, the demographic data of patients and physicians including age, gender, marital status and academic degree, type of treatment measures leading to complaints, last decision of the medical commission, characteristics of protesting of patients and vote of revision commissions for all the complaints of ophthalmology were recorded and analyzed.
Results: During 3 years, 176 complaints were recorded in the field of ophthalmology. Of these, 90(51.1%) complaints were from medical interventions which took place in university or government hospitals and clinics. Also, 27(15.3%) cases of malpractice were reported, among which negligent was the most common type, with 22 cases (81.5%). The highest number of complaints was for cataract surgery and the most frequent treatments with malpractice of the physicians were cornea transplantation. Although the most protests to the first decision were from the patients, the effectiveness of physicians’ protest was significantly higher (P<0.001).