Navin Naidoo: Making strides in forensic medicine
Terence Pillay chats to Navin Naidoo, who has become the first South African to acquire a PhD in Forensic Medicine, and finds out what this means for the ever-increasing crime stats in the country.
South Africa has one the highest crime rates in the world and processing crimes is a mammoth mission. For one, most forensic evidence from crime scenes still has to make its way to Pretoria to be processed, which means the potential for something happening to break the chain of evidence is very high.
Durban-born Navin Naidoo used to be a paramedic and the forensic handling of a family tragedy 23 years ago drove him to want to explore the field of how emergency medical services can improve their response to victims of gender-based violence. He has now become the first South African to have obtained a PhD in Forensic Medicine.
His doctoral work on gender-based violence intersects with emergency care and is promising to the extent that he drafted the HPCSA policy on Domestic Violence Screening by emergency care and the HPCSA position statement on the Social Determinants of Health.
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He is published in the field of ergonomics, safety promotion, emergency medicine, biomedical science, and feminist discourse on perpetrator rehabilitation. His work on emergency care education and research has been presented in the USA, Canada, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, South Africa, Botswana, and Brazil.
Now Naidoo wants to encourage school children to pursue a career in forensic medicine with the view to setting up processing stations around the country. He also says he wants to work on preventative measures that obviate fatalities when it comes to gender-based violence.
Take a listen to the interview in the podcast, then read more below:
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