Providing legal evidence for non-accidental scald burn injury

Overview

Although most burn injuries are completely accidental in nature, they can also occur due to neglect or abuse. Burn clinicians are often required to ascertain if the patient history and the wound are consistent with accidental or non-accidental injury. If the case goes to court, the clinician will prepare a medico-legal report as evidence. We have previously conducted studies examining the depth of burn injury after different durations and temperatures of hot water. This data can be used to predict the duration of hot water on the skin, if the temperature of the water and the depth of injury is known, i.e. whether a deep burn occurred after 1 second or 30 seconds of duration. To date, this data has been used in medico-legal reports on 8 occasions, as evidence to prosecute people who have harmed children. We now need to publish this case series and provide the biomedical data to other clinicians in a form they can easily use for their own reports.

Approaches/skills and techniques

Collecting information and data from patient medical cases and medico-legal reports, literature review, writing a manuscript.

Outcomes

Publication of this case series, demonstrating how our biomedical data can be used as medico-legal evidence will enable other clinicians to use it for suspected non-accidental burns.

Required skills and experience:

This project would suit a graduate of IX88 – Bachelor of Biomedical Science/Bachelor of Laws.

Keywords

• child safety
• burn injury
• biomedical data
• legal evidence

Contact

Leila.cuttle@qut.edu.au; 07 30697208

https://staff.qut.edu.au/staff/leila.cuttle

https://research.qut.edu.au/btr/