Legal medicine
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The management of patients who are Jehovah's Witnesses involves important medical, legal, and ethical considerations. A court case in Japan upheld 'the patient's right to decision-making' as part of the patient's 'personal right.' When the patient is a mature minor, his or her wishes should also be respected. ⋯ Transfusion-alternative strategies have made it easier to choose bloodless medicine and surgery. This matter of treating the 'whole person' should be considered with all its related factors in mind.
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Case Reports
A death in a stationary vehicle whilst idling: unusual carbon monoxide poisoning by exhaust gases.
In this paper, we describe an autopsy case in which death was due to accidental carbon monoxide poisoning occurring in a stationary vehicle idling in an open space. To investigate the source of the fatal fumes, the death scene situation was reconstructed using the vehicle. ⋯ CO gas was detected while idling and the level in the cabin gradually rose to 1.5% over a 2-h period. Since the 8-year-old motor vehicle seemed to have been defective for some months, it was concluded that stationary idling overnight caused an accumulation of toxic gases in the interior.
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In recent years, the increase in international migration movements has led to a greater demand for forensic age estimation of foreigners without valid identification documents in numerous countries. The growing importance of forensic age determination is underlined by a rapid rise in the number of expert reports by the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Berlin University Hospital Charité. A total of 247 expert opinions on estimated age were given between 1992 and 31 December 2000. ⋯ In 45 cases, the age diagnoses could be verified. In all cases where the age could be verified beyond doubt, deviations from the actual age did not exceed +/-12 months. From this, it can be concluded that the combined application of the above-mentioned methods allows forensic age estimations with a sufficiently high degree of reliability.