Orzecznictwo Lekarskie

In 2002 the Polish Society of Medical Certification was registered (for further information please refer to www.ptol.org.pl). On the initiative of this Society’s Management Board, since 2004 the scientific journal Orzecznictwo Lekarskie (Medical Certification) has been published regularly. It contains original and review papers, as well as those of training, informative, and polemical nature. Original papers have to be qualified for printing by an approval by reviewers, whereas the other - by Editorial Council.

The journal is interdisciplinary, but its subject matter is connected with a comprehensive medical certification. It is mainly aimed at physicians, because certification is one of their basic duties, but it is actually useful for everyone who directly or indirectly is connected with this domain of medical knowledge, i.e.: psychologists, lawyers, employees of social and commercial insurance companies, as well as those working for the disabled persons, and people dedicated to social welfare policy, non-governmental organizations within such policy etc.

Certification by physicians appears to be a very important (more and more important), difficult and responsible part of their activity. Dependent on it on the one hand is the correct allocation of funds (social, state or insurance companies funds), rights, privileges, and various allowances, and on the other hand - the fate of the certified person or her/his family. The certifying physicians’ task consists in finding the truth between the examined person’s wishes and the questioning institution’s expectations. It is their obligation, based on their medical knowledge and pursuant to their own conscience, to help the client in pursuing legally justified decisions through professional opinions made according to their own solutions and submitted medical documentation. Largely contributing to the certification process are legal standards which often fluctuate depending on the rules of the policy conducted by the State or by a given institution which orders an opinion. Therefore the certification knowledge (as the entire medical knowledge) acquired during higher studies is not sufficient; the doctor has to supplement it all the time.

Our journal will also serve this purpose. We are now making a public appeal to all physicians, especially clinicians and those providing certification services or outsourcing such services, to send reports, reviews, and information which can raise the level of certification. Especially as significant carelessness and deficiencies are noticeable among physicians in this field of medical knowledge.

It is our aim that our journal becomes a wide forum for exchange of knowledge, experience, and views and that it contributes to an improvement in the quality of issued opinions.

On behalf of the Management Board,
Polish Society of Medical Certification
Editor-in-chief
Dionizy Bilski