What is your professional background in forensic science?

I am an associate professor of Forensic Medicine in Ainshams University Faculty of Medicine in Egypt. I received my doctorate degree 10 years ago with honours from ASU and then proceeded to work on my educational capacity. I studied for a second Masters degree from Maastricht University and Suez Canal University in Health professions education. I then received a scholarship from ECFMG in USA for a fellowship program in Health professions education in FAIMER, Philadelphia.

What is your current job role and what does this work involve?

Currently I teach forensic Medicine to fourth year medical students together with my administrative job as the director of the Centre of Excellence in Forensic Psychiatric research. This centre is a product of a Newton Mosharafa Fund that I received from the British council and the Science Technology Development fund in Egypt to establish forensic psychiatry research trends in Egypt. At the moment I am working on establishing partnerships within the scope of forensic psychiatric service improvement.

What initially attracted you to this field of work?

I am a physician by training but I was attracted to the field of forensics mainly challenged by the importance of the service that one can offer to justice by giving a voice to the voiceless. My work as a forensic physician is mainly to advocate for those who are victimized and to prevent further injustice by uncovering the truth that can only be seen by forensics.

Can you tell us about the research you are currently involved in?

At the moment my point of focus is forensic psychiatric patients. I am indulged in studying the service offered in my country with the hope that I can import state of the art practices from the UK utilizing the cooperation agreement that I have set with them. The first part of the study is mapping the patient’s body in Egypt with special reference to the determinants of the length of their stay in the high secure wards. This requires a lot of work to establish a culture and understanding of predictors of violent behaviour. This work comes within my funded project that we have now come to call LIFE project.

Why is this work important to the field of forensic science and what do you hope to achieve by carrying out this research?

Our hope is to be able to establish guidelines to predict violent patient behaviours and thus be able to predict patients who are in need of extended stay in forensic wards. This will help in turn to reduce unnecessary length of stay of patients. By the end of this work I hope to be able to publish a white paper of effective forensic psychiatric practice as a guiding document to help in the decision making process when patients are discharged.

Do you have any words of advice for students wishing to pursue a career in your field of work?

My advice for students who want to pursue a career in forensic medicine is to specialize as early as possible. The earlier you specialize and maybe even subspecialize the quicker you grow in the field. Master your passion area and own it then try to build on it from early on. You build your name from day one in the field so build a name that goes with a specialization. It is also important to understand why you are in the field. Understand that you give bones a voice and that without you the truth will be buried indefinitely so it is important to take this calling very seriously.