Competence in the assessment of bodily harm refers to the assessment by specialised forensic doctors or medical experts to assess and quantify the physical and/or psychological harm suffered by a person as a result of an accident.

Competence in the assessment of bodily harm refers to the judgment of specialised forensic doctors or medical experts in assessing and quantifying the physical and/or psychological harm suffered by a person as a result of an accident, injury or illness. This assessment is carried out on the basis of medical and legal criteria and is often used in legal contexts such as insurance, road traffic accidents, accidents at work, legal proceedings and other situations where it is necessary to determine the extent and severity of the damage suffered by an individual.

This assessment results in:

• Medical documentation – The assessment of bodily harm also plays an important role in medical documentation and the recording of evidence of harm in a legal context.
• Establishing liability – In legal cases, this expertise can help determine who is responsible for the claim, namely the attribution or exclusion of causation.
• Awarding or excluding adequate compensation, which includes calculating possible monetary compensation based on the extent of the bodily injury, to be attributed by insurers, employees or responsible third parties.
• Guarantee of the right to adequate medical treatment, functional rehabilitation, incapacity for work and ongoing health care.
• Any advice on court judgements.

At Clínica Terrace by Dr Mara Marques we have Dr Paulo Jorge Figueira, a specialist in Orthopaedics and Traumatology since 2020, whose areas of interest are General Orthopaedics in adults and assessment of post-traumatic bodily injury, and Dr Rita Filipe, a Public Health doctor, with an Integrated Master’s Degree in Medicine from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon and a Postgraduate Diploma in Infectious Diseases from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, Competence in Bodily Injury Assessment and Competence in Social Medicine from the Portuguese Medical Association.