Gender-based approach: an essential tool in patient safety management and forensic medicine practice

The influence of sex and gender on human health and diseases continues nowadays to be underestimated in medical interventions and forensic practice, thus increasing the risk of claims for alleged healthcare professional liability and improper assessment of judicial matters. Since it is primarily an ethical issue, the World Health Organization recognized gender medicine as the only credible response to gender-based inequalities affecting the right to health and the need for fully inclusive personalized medicine. Indeed, patient gender significantly impacts the complexity of care, and it should be considered to optimize guidelines’ production and improve prevention, diagnosis, prognosis definition, and therapy, as well as the performance of forensic investigations and their findings’ interpretation. Gender medicine is a fundamental tool for appropriateness and resource rationalization in healthcare provision. At the same time, its full implementation may equip judicial systems with guaranteed and trustworthy assessment parameters to objectively evaluate forensic and criminal cases.