Professor Rick van Rijn

Forensic radiology

Forensic radiology concerns radiology that focuses on the application of radiological imaging in criminal proceedings. It focuses in part on the imaging after a probable non-natural death, but – especially where children are concerned – also on the imaging and interpretation of findings that may be the result of injuries inflicted on living victims.

The special chair of Forensic Radiology in Particular Paediatric Radiology focuses on the following two aspects of radiology.

1. Clinical paediatric radiology: The goal is to generate more attention among fellow radiologists as well as in other specialties for the value of specific findings that may indicate that injury has been inflicted. For this purpose, research is carried out in collaboration with paediatrics, paediatric surgery and traumatology. This also includes lecturing on the subject in the medical degree programme at the UvA, as well as in postgraduate refresher courses at home and abroad.
2. Forensic paediatric radiology: The aim is to be able to use (the value of) radiological findings in the criminal justice system with better scientific substantiation. To this end, research is being conducted with the forensic paediatrics department of the NFI's Special Services and Expertise Department (BDE: Bijzondere Dienstverlening en Expertise). In light of the NFI's remit, this part of the research focuses on inflicted skull brain injuries and fractures in children.

Curriculum vitae

Rick van Rijn, born in 1967, studied medicine at Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he graduated in 1994. In 1998 he obtained his PhD at the same faculty with a thesis entitled 'Radiological strength assessment of the proximal femur'. He then started his training as a radiologist at the Dijkzigt Ziekenhuis, a hospital in Rotterdam, which was partly completed at the radiology department of the Academic Medical Center (AMC) in Amsterdam.

Since January 2003 he has been a staff member in the paediatric radiology department at the Amsterdam UMC, UvA, and since 2010 he has a part-time appointment at the NFI's BDE department.

He was chairman of the International Society of Forensic Radiology and Imaging and is secretary of the European Society of Paediatric Radiology and chairman of the Science and Education Committee of the Dutch Forensic Medical Society.

Rick van Rijn is the editor of three books on radiology and has authored several chapters. He has some 200 scientific publications to his name.