About SFMS

The State Forensic Medicine Service (SFMS) is a personal health care budget institution of the Lithuanian National Health System providing forensic medical services in the field of personal health care management. SFMS provides quality forensic medical services by conducting forensic medical examinations and investigations by the order of courts, prosecutor's offices or pre-trial investigation institutions, as well as at the requests from natural and legal persons. The key objectives of SFMS activities:

• To provide forensic services;
• To ensure the training and professional development of forensic medicine experts in their field; to organize the provision of their qualifications and to participate in the training of forensic doctors;
• To ensure cooperation with research and study institutions.

SFMS expert units are located in 5 major cities of Lithuania - Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, Panevėžys and 3 regional centers - Alytus, Jurbarkas, Marijampolė. Forensic laboratory tests are conducted at Didlaukio st. 86E, Vilnius, at Toxicology, Serology and DNA, Forensic Medical Criminalistics and Histology laboratories equipped with advanced laboratory equipment and technologies.

SFMS provides a training base for the residents of forensic medicine studies at the Faculty of Medicine of Vilnius University; it also cooperates with research and study institutions. Forensic experts improve their professional qualification in various professional development courses, seminars, scientific-practical conferences; they also participate in the preparation of methodological publications and articles on scientific and practical activities in scientific and international publications peer-reviewed in Lithuania, proficiency testing programs. Forensic specialists from Italy, Japan, the USA, the Baltic States and other European countries have improved their professional qualifications at SFMS. SFMS is a member of the Lithuanian Forensic Medicine Association, the Baltic Medico-Legal Association (BMLA), the International Academy of Legal Medicine (IALM), and the European Council of Legal Medicine (ECLM).

Since December 18, 2012, based on the National Accreditation Bureau expert assessment results, SFMS has been accredited in accordance with international standard LST EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005 'General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories'. On July 10, 2020, SFMS was accredited according to the updated version of this standard - LST EN ISO / IEC 17025: 2018.