Forensic Pathologists

Forensic pathology is an area of the medical profession which looks at determining the cause of death of a person by conducting an autopsy. Forensic pathologists are strongly linked with legal professionals, as their services are usually requested by the courts of law to help determine the cause of death in criminal trials. This article will look at some of the roles and responsibilities of forensic pathologists.

There are many roles of a forensic pathologist – many more than most people realize. There are many areas to a forensic pathologists job, including being a detective, pathologist, politician and public relations person – making it a very varied and rewarding career.

The first and most important one of course being to determine the cause of death. There are two particular forms of cause of death: proximate cause of death and immediate cause of death. The proximate cause of death is the initial injury that led to a sequence of events which then led to the death. The immediate cause of death is the injury or disease that finally led to the death of the individual. They must then establish the manner of death, whether it was a homicide (murder), suicide, accidental or from natural causes.

The forensic pathologist must also be familiar with ‘normal’ postmortem changes, as some changes that happen naturally at death may mislead the inexperienced to think there was foul play involved. Some of the terms most relevant include: Rigor mortis; Livor mortis; desiccation; and putrefaction and mummification.

Rigor mortis refers to how the body’s muscles can become very rigid at the time of death. Rigor mortis wears off as the body’s muscles decompose.

Livor mortis, also known as hypostasis, is when the body has a purple discoloration that is caused when blood settles at dependent parts of the body.

Desiccation occurs usually on the mucous membranes. When a human is alive the mucous membranes remain moist, but at death can appear burnt or black.

Putrefaction and mummification is a sequence of physiochemical events that leads to the skin forming a greenish discoloration. This occurs when the epidermis becomes detached from its membrane. Mummification is when the body dries out faster than it is being decomposed.

These observations all have to be made before determining the cause of death, and after that the forensic pathologist must look at the injuries on the body to be able to determine the official cause. Some of these injuries can include lacerations, punctures, abrasions, contusions and gunshot wounds. They may also decide that the person died from natural causes.

This isn’t the only role of the forensic pathologist though. Some of their other responsibilities include: identifying the absence or presence of disease in sample tissue; collaborative evidence collection such as hair and blood samples to give to investigators and toxologists for special analyst; and also acting as an expert witness in criminal or civil court proceedings. Forensic pathologists often work closely with the police and legal professionals in criminal cases.

As you can see the job of a forensic pathologist is exciting and varied, and not for the faint-hearted! It requires a lot of study and hard work to become a forensic pathologist though, with the average study time being 14 years from high school in the USA – so it’s a lot of dedication!