Afterwards, she attended Mayo Clinic College of Medicine where she continued developing her interest in neuroscience. After a year of internal medicine internship, Dr. Smith decided to pursue pathology as a career, completing an Anatomic Pathology residency and Neuropathology fellowship at the University of Kentucky. As part of her work, Dr. Smith spends time looking at tissue under the microscope, collaborates with other doctors and teaches as well.
She enjoys being able to provide definitive diagnoses and providing guidance for patients and their physicians. Smith notes that pathologists are able to enjoy a fairly balanced lifestyle, and outside of the hospital she likes to spend time with her family, including her husband who is also a physician.
By the end of the session with Dr. Smith you will be able to answer questions, such as: Which of the following is not true regarding pathologists? What are clinical pathologists responsible for examining? Examination of what bodily fluids would most likely be abnormal in a case of encephalitis?
A complete autopsy is often performed in traumatic or violent deaths gunshot, stab, electrocution, burn, poison, fall, drowning, starvation, suffocation, strangulation, etc. An investigation or autopsy is necessary in all traumatic deaths regardless of duration of survival or hospitalization of the injured person if no complete recovery was made after the injury.
An autopsy is not normally performed when the death appears to be from natural causes and adequate medical history exists, and there are no indications of foul play. The Medical Examiner often receives such cases only because the attending physician is not in Florida and cannot sign a Florida death certificate or the decedent has not seen a physician or been prescribed medications for over 12 months. Autopsies are usually performed on the same day jurisdiction is accepted or the next day.
An exception would be if the family chooses donation. The autopsy would be performed the following day after donation. Usually all you need to do is select a funeral home or crematory.
The funeral director will take care of the remaining details. An investigator from the Medical Examiner's Office may contact you for information concerning the medical history of the deceased, funeral arrangements, date of birth, social security number and similar information. You may submit a request for an autopsy report by:. Not all autopsy reports can be released under Florida Statute Some reports may not be public records at the time of a request.
Please provide as much information as possible when making a request for records. This will prevent delays in responding to your request. Please note that this is a fee for copies pursuant to Florida Statute Please contact our office at for fee information. All confidential and exempt information will be redacted from copies of public records.
If any request that requires extensive use of information technology resources or administrative staff, an additional charge will be assessed. The District 21 Medical Examiner's Office does not issue death certificates.
While a time frame cannot be established on when this type of case will be un-pended, each is handled independently. Some cases can take up to twelve weeks to finalize not pending. However, this does not prevent the body from being released after the autopsy is completed within 24 to 48 hours of the examination. This depends upon the time it takes to examine a body or do an autopsy and take physical evidence.
Even if a cause and manner of death is pending, most bodies are able to be released within 24 hours to 48 hours of examination to the funeral home chosen by the family. The legal authorized person, as defined in Florida Statute Rarely is a family required to make identification at the medical examiner's office. If a family member is required to make identification a photograph is used for identification. The medical examiner's office is not staffed to accommodate viewing requests.
This office does not perform private autopsies. The cost of an autopsy is covered by the county in the jurisdiction where the person died. By Florida Statute , the Medical Examiner is not required to receive permission from the legally authorized person see Florida Statute The sleeves had thumb holes.
Latex gloves came on first, then the apron, then another pair of gloves over the wrist of the sleeve. Each M. The first body came from the emergency room and was still wrapped in its black body bag. When they rolled him in the former patient was still intubated and white gauze covered the eyes.
According to my companion the gauze is procedure in the Emergency Room when the deceased is an organ donor. Rigor mortis had set in and the corpse was stiff like a wax figure. The doctors squirted yellow Joy soap on the edge of the autopsy table and pushed the body on its side. The arms remained stationary when the doctors pulled it onto the table. They were not gentle. It took some tugging to get the body off the gurney, and it banged its way forward, its transition made smoother, but no less grating, by the slippery rivers of dish soap.
Both took pictures and measurements of suspicious markings from bruises and scratches to teeth marks. A dark ring of singed skin circled the wound and my companion explained this happens when a gun is fired at close range. The doctor stuck a sticker with a metric inch printed on it to the temple beside the gunshot wound. This was to show the wound to scale in each photograph.
The bullet travelled clean through the head. So far, except for the size of the holes and the degree of damage around the exit wound, there was nothing to indicate what type of bullet was used.
After the examination, however, the doctors and a detective a law enforcement official sent by the county in which the incident occured determined from long experience the bullet was probably. A field agent working for a local SBI unit explained that all photographs taken at the scene of a crime and during the autopsy have to have a 90 degree comparison shot. This way everyone involved in the case can gain perspective on the body, even if they were not present during the autopsy.
The images must be comparable so if and when they go to trial, there is no room for assumption or speculation. No 90 degree photos, no case. The doctors gathered their shots of the bullet holes by photographing above the corpse on the kind of rolling metal stair used in retail stores.
Standing on the top step, the doctor leaned over the body and flashed a picture using one of three Nikon cameras. More pictures were taken from each side of the corpse. The medical examiner fearlessly tugged at them with pliers.
We watched as the doctor wriggled and ripped them out. But the medical examiner was relentless, and professional. Later on, after the autopsy, a friend of a friend would speculate that medical examiners are quite mean and cold, almost barbaric.
But I believe this is an unfounded stereotype. I was shadowing told me before they began their work. He was stoic, and seemed indifferent to my opinion. This might put others off but I felt it meant he must value the fruits of his labor more highly than feeding the imagination of a lay person. It seemed important to each person we came across that day, including the field agents later on, that the reality of their jobs was more powerful and important than any television show could ever depict for them.
Nothing but sadness. Outside of my head, and back in the autopsy room we noticed something sharp like glass had cut through the occipitofrontalis muscle in the first cadaver; the muscle that raises the eyebrows.
The cut was smooth and even, and a slash of orange and pink tissue lay in contrast next to the dark skin of the corpse. I remember something else my M. They may have a problem with what I tell them. I tell them the truth. The M. One yelled through the glass asking if I needed to use the bathroom. He had to swipe his badge to let me pass by the open autopsy room in order to get there. The air was cool and the morning light washed over everything. As I opened the door I was gratified at my luck.
I was given the chance to test one of my biggest fears about the job: the smell. The scent was like garbage and chemicals and a twinge of something putrid, but it was not overpowering. The hallway was narrow and I was more nervous passing the body bags nearby. Of course, all the bodies present were pretty fresh. The bathroom was dimly lit with a single toilet stall and a shower in a darkened corner. My imagination started humming away, seeing bacteria swarming between the tiles.
But I had to laugh at myself for this and even forced myself to walk just a few steps closer to the bags in the hall when I returned to watch the autopsy itself. I told myself to toughen up. The medical examiner made an incision with a fine edged scalpel just below each clavicle and joined the cuts in the middle of the chest like the stem of a y, extending below the belly button. As the torso was skinned, I could see the dark red pectoral muscles were laced with fascia.
Fascia is a thin, tough, fibrous material found all throughout the body: around bones, muscles, and blood vessels. It serves as one extra and deceptively effective protective measure.
It adhered like tape to the rib cage and had to be torn and stripped away. The only blood was in stains on the sheet and towels. Islands of puffy yellow fat were webbed in-between the muscle fibers. The muscles and tendons of the rib cage were flush with the bone and cartilage, marbling the surface red and white. The ribs were a broad dome and the last thick barrier between the outside world and the heart and lungs.
Below them was the bowl of the abdomen, filled with soft organs sheathed in what looked like slippery beige sacks. An electric, circular saw about 4 inches in diameter tore through the rib cage, spattering shreds of muscle and bone particulates. The doctor cut a triangular flap in the chest with a blunted tip above the sternum, a few inches below the neck. The heart and lungs were removed together, both slippery like the skin on a wet seal and mottled red, mauve, grey and brown.
Occasionally the heart would come out with the lungs. The doctor would hold it up in front of the observation room window with its floppy, severed aorta and point out its four chambers. The large and small intestines, bladder, kidneys, liver, gallbladder, and adrenal glands were removed from the abdomen in more of the wet looking sacks. On one body, the watered down remains of fluids and blood were ladeled out of the chest and abdomen cavities using what looked like a gerber baby food jar.
I was reminded again of the tools you might find in an amateur scientists lab and I wondered about the departments annual supply budget.
The medical examiner used a long instrument to loosen the skin and muscle in the neck. He jammed the instrument upward until you could see the length of the instrument sliding back and forth underneath, sawing away at the connective tissue.
He cut through the trachea and esophagus. Then, in one fluid, unseen motion the doctor reached his forearm up the throat and dislodged the tongue, hyoid bone and muscle, and the top most part of the tracheal tube.
The tongue was a broad beige muscle without a blood supply. The taste buds stood out like brail at its base where it was still attached to the muscles of the throat.
Metal scrapping on metal startled me. Once he was satisfied he laid the knife down and picked up a scalpel. Placing it just behind the top of the ear, he cut through the hair and scalp.
I knew what was coming but I was surprised anyway when I saw the skull shining between the thick layers of scalp. It had an odd bluish-gray tinge to it.
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