Resolution
National Association of Medical Examiners
Executive Committee
July 2, 2009

Be it resolved:

The National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME) strongly endorses all of the recommendations of the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies encompassed in the report “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward .”

The NAME Executive Committee has the following specific comments on the recommendations:

Recommendation #1

The first and most important NAS recommendation is that a new and independent National Institute of Forensic Sciences (NIFS) be established to promote the development of forensic science into a mature field of multidisciplinary research and practice founded on the systematic collection and analysis of data. NAME strongly supports this recommendation and sees it as the foundation for the remainder of the NRC recommendations. NAME also recognizes that there might be impediments to establishing a new institute at this time. If NIFS is unattainable at present, NAME believes that the duties of this agency should be placed as a bridging step into a new Office of Forensic Services (OFS) within an existing agency fulfilling the spirit of the NRC recommendations.
The report outlines that one of the functions of NIFS is to establish and enforce best practices for forensic science professionals.  In the arena of medicolegal death investigation, NAME has established forensic autopsy performance standards that can be used for this purpose.

NAME believes that an essential function of NIFS would be to conduct periodic forensic science needs assessments at the federal, state, regional, and local levels in order to ensure optimal provision of resources to service providers. Such assessments should also consider research needs. The assessment results should be presented in a report.

The Medical Examiner/Coroner’s Guide For Contaminated Deceased Body Management

Prepared by Randy Hanzlick, MD, Kurt Nolte, MD, Joyce deJong, DO and the NAME Biological and Chemical Terrorism Committee and Bioterrorism and Infectious Disease Committee, August 2006. Approved for posting on the NAME web site by the NAME Board of Directors at its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, October 13, 2006.

The Medical Examiner and Coroner’s Guide for Contaminated Deceased Body Management is written specifically for the medical examiner or coroner who will be in charge of investigations of fatalities that result from terrorism or other events that result in contaminated remains. In some such cases, agents may be used that will require mitigation of environmental hazards and decontamination of human bodies. To that end, this Guide provides information and suggestions that may be useful in understanding the principles involved in decontamination procedures, recognizing that it may not be the medical examiner or coroner staff who actually conducts decontamination procedures.

Posted on this web site on 11/8/06. Download here.

So You Want To Be A Medical Detective

A medical detective can be considered a “death investigator”. There are a variety of professionals beside the police who may be involved in death investigation, including coroners, medical examiners, pathologists and forensic pathologists. This brief publication describes the different professionals involved in death investigation.

Posted on the web site on 11/9/06. Download here.