What's the Difference Between Coroners and Medical Examiners?

to find answers for the living. We spoke with Gary Watts the Corner in Richland County, South Carolina. He said, morally, I think we can be judged as a civilization on how we treat those that are dead. We talked about it all the time. I don't care for dealing with somebody that was found under a bridge or was found in a five million dollar house. We're going to treat them with respect and dignity. We're going to take care

of their families in carrying out their duties. Though many of America's death investigators, stile, medical examiners and corners, whose work is supported by taxpayers, are hampered by a lack of manpower, chronic underfunding, and a general public coolness toward their work, whether people want to face it or not.

Though these jobs are critically important, death investigators not only uncover possible foul play, but they can spot infectious diseases and are among the first to identify epidemics and other public health concerns. So what's the difference between a medical examiner and a corner. Lots of people use those titles interchangeably, but they're not the same. Here's the explanation from a two thousand three workshop held by the U S Institute

of Medicine now called the National Academy of Medicine. Quote. The major differences between corners and medical examiners are embedded in the manner of their selection by electoral process versus appointment, and their professional status. Corners are elected lay people who often do not have professional training, whereas medical examiners are appointed and have board certification in a medical specialty. Lot's explained.

I think a lot of people have the misconception from a death investigative standpoint, that it has to be one or the other. My opinion has always been that it needs to be professionally trained death investigators, regardless of what type of system you work whether it's a corner system or a medical examiner system. What's forty year career as a corner includes time as a police officer and an emergency medical technician. Like some jurisdictions throughout the US, but

not all, the Richland County Coroner's Office uses medical examiners. Again, they're normally physicians to actually conduct autopsies. Deputy corners do the fieldwork, including investigating the death scene, tracking down medical records, and interviewing witnesses. What said, we rely on the medical exam or the forensic pathologist to give us the medical reason the person dies. They determine the cause of death from a medical standpoint. Corners determined the manner of death

through an investigative process. Take for example, a gunshot victim is a homicide, a suicide, an accident? Can it be determined? What said? You cannot necessarily make that determination just from the autopsy process. You have to have skilled investigators in the field, death investigators to help with that process to make sure that you come up not only with the proper cause of death, but also the proper manner of death.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, states have a myriad of different systems to conduct death investigations. Some states use a centralized medical examiner system, some are county or district based, and some mixing corners in varying ways. States have differing definitions of what a coroner or a medical examiner is. Too. Medical examiner in West Virginia, for example, doesn't have to be a physician. In Georgia, someone can be both the mayor and the corner if they live

in a town a fewer than five thousand people. In Nebraska, the county attorney does the job of the corner and in Texas, justices of the Peace handle corner duties. States also have different requirements on what triggers an autopsy or death investigation. All of it makes for confusing and sometimes slipshod way that death is handled throughout the nation, From one district to another. The authorities handling these issues may

have vastly differing competency and resources. What's common, it seems, is this funding is a problem almost everywhere, and largely because of that, it's extremely difficult to find qualified medical examiners or forensic pathologists who can make good money outside of government work, and it's becoming harder to pay qualified

people who know their way around the field. A report by the Scientific Working Group on Medical Legal Death Investigation cited a number of reasons for the shortage of forensic pathologists. Some estimate that fewer than five hundred are practicing in the US. Among the reasons a lack of educational centers that teach the profession, lacks funding to support that education, high dropout rates, tight budgets among states and counties, and the resultant low salaries the deter young people who may

want to enter the field. That shortage may be causing some disturbing problems. A the eleven investigation by NPR, PBS, and Pro Publica found jurisdictions that were cutting back on autopsies when the cause of death seemed obvious. Craig Harvey, a death investigator with the Los Angeles County Corners Office now retired, told NPR at that time, there's no way that we can look at every case we should probably

be looking at. When you only see one in every three cases, the possibility that homicide is going to be missed are pretty great. For Watts, who has been involved with more than thirty death investigations in his career, The Systemic problems always come back to money. If states don't cough up enough to pay the right kind of experts, the problems will persist, he said. The death investigation offices

are usually the last ones to get funding. It's something that people either don't want to think about, try not to think about, or won't think about until it affects them personally, and then everyone wants to know all the answers and exactly what happened. Today's episode written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang with kind assistants from Dylan Fagan. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeart Radio's

How Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of other topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com. And for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.