WEBVTT - What's the Difference Between Coroners and Medical Examiners? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.520 Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:11.000 brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. When a person dies violently 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:15.720 or unusually, or in an untimely fashioned, difficult questions invariably follow. 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.360 What happened? Could it have been prevented? Is foul play involved? 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:24.640 Has a crime been committed? Should we be worried? Those 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.320 are the questions that corners, medical examiners, and forensic pathologists 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.080 wrangle with every day. They are the ones who have 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.840 to find answers for the living. We spoke with Gary 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:39.760 Watts the Corner in Richland County, South Carolina. He said, morally, 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:42.199 I think we can be judged as a civilization on 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:44.880 how we treat those that are dead. We talked about 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:46.960 it all the time. I don't care for dealing with 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.160 somebody that was found under a bridge or was found 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:51.440 in a five million dollar house. We're going to treat 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.000 them with respect and dignity. We're going to take care 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:58.000 of their families in carrying out their duties. Though many 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:02.000 of America's death investigators, stile, medical examiners and corners, whose 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.080 work is supported by taxpayers, are hampered by a lack 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:09.240 of manpower, chronic underfunding, and a general public coolness toward 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.800 their work, whether people want to face it or not. 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:16.920 Though these jobs are critically important, death investigators not only 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.360 uncover possible foul play, but they can spot infectious diseases 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.760 and are among the first to identify epidemics and other 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:27.039 public health concerns. So what's the difference between a medical 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:30.640 examiner and a corner. Lots of people use those titles interchangeably, 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.520 but they're not the same. Here's the explanation from a 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.800 two thousand three workshop held by the U S Institute 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.560 of Medicine now called the National Academy of Medicine. Quote. 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:43.000 The major differences between corners and medical examiners are embedded 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.600 in the manner of their selection by electoral process versus appointment, 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.640 and their professional status. Corners are elected lay people who 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.160 often do not have professional training, whereas medical examiners are 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:59.080 appointed and have board certification in a medical specialty. Lot's explained. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.560 I think a lot of people have the misconception from 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.559 a death investigative standpoint, that it has to be one 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.200 or the other. My opinion has always been that it 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.720 needs to be professionally trained death investigators, regardless of what 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.320 type of system you work whether it's a corner system 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:17.840 or a medical examiner system. What's forty year career as 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.480 a corner includes time as a police officer and an 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:24.600 emergency medical technician. Like some jurisdictions throughout the US, but 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:29.120 not all, the Richland County Coroner's Office uses medical examiners. Again, 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:33.840 they're normally physicians to actually conduct autopsies. Deputy corners do 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:38.000 the fieldwork, including investigating the death scene, tracking down medical records, 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:42.280 and interviewing witnesses. What said, we rely on the medical 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.040 exam or the forensic pathologist to give us the medical 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.040 reason the person dies. They determine the cause of death 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.600 from a medical standpoint. Corners determined the manner of death 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:56.800 through an investigative process. Take for example, a gunshot victim 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:00.520 is a homicide, a suicide, an accident? Can it be determined? 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.880 What said? You cannot necessarily make that determination just from 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.000 the autopsy process. You have to have skilled investigators in 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.040 the field, death investigators to help with that process to 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:12.800 make sure that you come up not only with the 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.919 proper cause of death, but also the proper manner of death. 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.000 According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, states 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.639 have a myriad of different systems to conduct death investigations. 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.760 Some states use a centralized medical examiner system, some are 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.400 county or district based, and some mixing corners in varying ways. 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.360 States have differing definitions of what a coroner or a 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:38.600 medical examiner is. Too. Medical examiner in West Virginia, for example, 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.040 doesn't have to be a physician. In Georgia, someone can 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.000 be both the mayor and the corner if they live 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:46.920 in a town a fewer than five thousand people. In Nebraska, 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.240 the county attorney does the job of the corner and 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:53.560 in Texas, justices of the Peace handle corner duties. States 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.720 also have different requirements on what triggers an autopsy or 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:00.600 death investigation. All of it makes for confusing and sometimes 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.600 slipshod way that death is handled throughout the nation, From 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.920 one district to another. The authorities handling these issues may 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:12.600 have vastly differing competency and resources. What's common, it seems, 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:17.359 is this funding is a problem almost everywhere, and largely 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.479 because of that, it's extremely difficult to find qualified medical 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.880 examiners or forensic pathologists who can make good money outside 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.880 of government work, and it's becoming harder to pay qualified 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:31.159 people who know their way around the field. A report 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.039 by the Scientific Working Group on Medical Legal Death Investigation 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.920 cited a number of reasons for the shortage of forensic pathologists. 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:40.440 Some estimate that fewer than five hundred are practicing in 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:44.560 the US. Among the reasons a lack of educational centers 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.680 that teach the profession, lacks funding to support that education, 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.200 high dropout rates, tight budgets among states and counties, and 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:53.960 the resultant low salaries the deter young people who may 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.800 want to enter the field. That shortage may be causing 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:02.400 some disturbing problems. A the eleven investigation by NPR, PBS, 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.240 and Pro Publica found jurisdictions that were cutting back on 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.240 autopsies when the cause of death seemed obvious. Craig Harvey, 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.119 a death investigator with the Los Angeles County Corners Office 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.520 now retired, told NPR at that time, there's no way 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:17.839 that we can look at every case we should probably 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.560 be looking at. When you only see one in every 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.400 three cases, the possibility that homicide is going to be 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.640 missed are pretty great. For Watts, who has been involved 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.880 with more than thirty death investigations in his career, The 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.640 Systemic problems always come back to money. If states don't 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:36.800 cough up enough to pay the right kind of experts, 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:41.440 the problems will persist, he said. The death investigation offices 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.360 are usually the last ones to get funding. It's something 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.680 that people either don't want to think about, try not 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.480 to think about, or won't think about until it affects 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.159 them personally, and then everyone wants to know all the 0:05:52.200 --> 0:06:00.599 answers and exactly what happened. Today's episode written by John 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.000 Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang with kind assistants from 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.800 Dylan Fagan. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeart Radio's 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:07.479 How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.360 other topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.600 And for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.280 iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:16.159 your favorite shows.