Archive for October, 2012
Means to Prevent Practitioner Malpractice
by Moderator on Oct.19, 2012, under Topics for discussion
Recent news reported a case of forensic practitioner malfeasance. A chemist at the Massachusetts State Crime Laboratory is alleged to have falsified drug tests and reported out fraudulent test results. While it is unclear how long this malpractice had been going on, or just how many cases were affected, it has placed all the employed chemists’ work in question, and also, obviously, jeopardized thousands of cases.
The chemist was arrested and will eventually be tried for her actions, though the question remains: how can these situations be avoided? What sort of quality assurance program could be adopted to prevent such acts, be they purposely planned of not?
Further Questions: Is the analyst alone at fault, or is the organization, under which the laboratory operates, to blame as well? What precautionary steps could a laboratory take to prevent such cases from occurring in the future?
