Aligning graduate competence with occupational standards An analysis of medico legal training and practice in Sri Lanka

This paper highlights the necessity to aligning graduate competence with occupational standards in workforce development and discusses the existing gap between the service recipient (ministry of justice), service provider (ministry of health), higher education regulatory bodies (University Grants Commission/Sri Lanka Medical Council), the pre service training institutions (ministry of higher education) and students with special reference to medico legal practice.It considers the options available as continue training medical officers inadequately in the hope that the number of medico-legal consultants would one day be adequate for the needs of the country, since this as a transient period in the development of the speciality increase the production of specialists resulting in diminishing of expectations from the generalist establish protocols for specialist referrals provide a short internship/training program in medico-legal work to all medical officers immediately after graduation restructure the Forensic medicine teaching program. It proposes a way forward with particular reference to instructional reform while identifying constraints and recommendations for its implementation.