Pekka Saukko
Department of Forensic Medicine,
University of Turku, FI-20520 Turku, Finland (UTU)

Key elements of a good forensic pathology service

Public awareness about the importance of good quality services of the forensic community to the society has varied at times. Due to the atrocities and natural catastrophes of recent years in various parts of the world, the need for forensic pathology has been made obvious by the media and the general awareness about services it can provide has probably reached the highest culmination so far.

It is common sense that the administration of justice should benefit from a high quality medico-legal system, but unlike in clinical medicine, where the benefit of a given therapeutic procedure can be observed when the patient is cured, the impact of forensic pathology services on society is a more complex and multifaceted process and is far more difficult to assess. If the service contains loopholes or bad practices at any level of the organisation or auxiliary structures, these may compromise the reputation and usefulness of an otherwise healthy organisation.

The most important asset are the individuals, well-trained and supervised, experienced forensic pathologists that have access and are willing to participate in regular continuing professional development and quality assurance measures. Important systemic factors are further appropriate legal framework, unbiased organisation, good administration and adequate funding. One cannot emphasize enough the importance of good specialist education and training. Specialist training should preferably take place in an environment where autopsy work is associated with undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, practice of clinical forensic medicine as well as scientific research with access to scientific information and laboratories with appropriate instrumentation and materials.

There is a great diversity of medico-legal practices worldwide as well as differences in training of forensic pathologists. There are also worrying developments and signs of decline of academic forensic medicine that, if continuing, will both wither scientific research and publishing within forensic medicine and, in the long run, endanger individual rights.

Dr. Pekka Saukko qualified in medicine from the University of Vienna, Austria in 1975, was trained at the Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Oulu, Finland and became certified as Specialist in Forensic Medicine by the National Board of Health, Finland in 1981. He received a Doctorate in Medical Science (MD) by thesis in Forensic Pathology in 1983 by the University of Oulu and was appointed Adjunct Professor (Docent) of Forensic Medicine of the same University in 1986.

From 1978 to 1989 he was appointed Provincial Medical Officer, Medico-legal Expert, Provincial Government of Oulu, after which he was appointed Professor of Forensic Medicine of the University of Tampere, Finland and in 1992 to his current position as Professor of Forensic Medicine and Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine of the University of Turku, Finland.

He has been appointed short-term visiting Professor at the Departments of Forensic Medicine, Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan, Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou and Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, P.R. China and Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary. He has served as Extern Examiner in Medical Jurisprudence at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Dublin - Trinity College and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Dr. Saukko is Founding Member and currently President of the European Council of Legal Medicine (ECLM), and since 1995 Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and Presidium Member of the International Academy of Legal Medicine (IALM). He is Honorary Member of the Hungarian, the Royal Belgian and German Societies of Forensic Medicine and was granted Honorary Fellowship of the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians (London) in 2007.

Dr. Saukko has published in topics of forensic medicine and pathology as author and co-author in peer-reviewed scientific journals and international textbooks such as Saukko P. & Knight B. Knight’s Forensic Pathology. 3rd Ed. 2004, Edward Arnold, London; Pollak S. & Saukko P. Atlas of Forensic Medicine, 2003, Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam or contributed as co-editor and author to encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences I-III, Academic Press, London, 2000 (Eds.) Siegel J, Saukko P.J. & Knupfer G.C.

Since 1993 Dr. Saukko has been Editor-in-Chief of one of the leading international peer-reviewed forensic journals: The Forensic Science International, by Elsevier and is currently Editorial Board Member of further eight national or international scientific journals of forensic medicine or science.

Dr. Saukko has been member of the Working Party on the Harmonisation of Autopsy Rules (CDBI-AR) of the Council of Europe from 1997 to 1998 and has worked for the United Nations, UNDP/UNOPS, as forensic expert in Cambodia in 1996 and for the UNDP/NHRC (CD-NHRC) in Nepal in 2008. He has further assessed the Finnish Medico-legal System for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health of the Republic of Finland in 1997 and as member of the International Committee for Quality Evaluation the Departments of Forensic Medicine of the Universities of Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra for the National Institute of Legal Medicine of Portugal in 2001 and assessed as member of an expert panel research projects of the National Research Institute of Police Science in Japan in 2007.