Sorry about that. My inbox now has been cleared (mostly).
I've only been at the ME's office for two weeks (two more to go) and the experience is not quite as in-depth as it could be. Our office does the "review" each day at 8:30. We always attend that. Therein the bodies brought into the building over the last 24 hours or so are briefly presented and a determination is made whether the case is to get a post.
As I understand it, in my state all MVA's, deaths and work and suspicious deaths for which a cause and manner are not obvious are to get a post. The reality, however, is that most of the bodies who come through the building (at least for review) are simply deaths in the community for which the attending is too chicken-**** to assign a cause of death. That being the case, they automatically come to the coroner. Most often these bodies are simply looked over and returned. Our coroner is rather permissive, and therefore just about all family requests (whether its a coroner case or not) gets a post; I've seen them post day-glow yellow bodies with frank ascites and Hx's of HBV, HCV and hepatocellular Carcinoma who dies on the table during a portal-caval shunt because they think there was foul play. So, we get all kinds.
In this office they do the autopsies in the mornings and review slides in the afternoon. We only stick around for the autopsies. I've been doing a bit of the organ dissections, but that's about it. Mostly it's just observation.
let me know if you have another other questions.
Judd
