[Medical certificates for intentional wounds and blows in medico-legal practice in Dakar]

Drawing up the medical certificate is a crucial step in the judicial process. This judicial document should be drafted during a medical legal consultation. This study aims to evaluate the quality of medical certificates in a medico-judicial consultation and to study interpretative criteria of medical certificate validity. We conducted a retrospective study of patient's victims of intentional wounds and blows receiving a medico-judicial consultation at the Grand Yoff General Hospital, from April 2012 to February 2015. The whole of medical certificates were recorded on a survey form analyzed by Epi Info Version 6.04. The whole of the 249 certificates studied was printed in legible and understandable "Arial police 12". All the studied medical certificates included complete identification of the physician and the victim. The date and the time of aggression were written in 248 certificates (99.6%). The type of abuse suffered was specified on the whole of the 249 certificates: 164 brawls (65.9%), 64 unilateral aggressions (25.7%). The precise description and nature of the lesions was written in 246 certificates. The site of the lesions was established based on fixed anatomical landmarks in the various body plans. Medico-judicial consultation, coordinated by the forensic physician, helped to significantly improve the quality of the documents issued. The dissemination of these drafting practices and of the practices concerning the issuing of certificates is essential in particular in the regional hospital as part of an ongoing training or postgraduate training.