The Autopsy Doctor

Answer: It indicates aspiration of gastric contents . The central large pink structure inside this bronchus with pink honeycomb like appearance is skeletal muscle (meat).

If your loved one has died in a hospital, and an autopsy is desired, first ask about having the autopsy done by the hospital’s pathology staff. This is the first advice I always give as it may, under those circumstances, be free of charge. Talk to the doctor of record for your loved one because if they ask, there is a better chance it will happen. That said, many hospitals these days do not have such means. If you choose a private pathology service, be sure the autopsy provider you choose is a board certified pathologist, licensed in that state where the exam occurs, and preferably boarded in both anatomic and forensic pathology. Many national autopsy service providers use a lay tech/assistant who dissects and simply works with a pathologist, and they may not even be present for that dissection. This kind of thing unfortunately happens. It is only through first hand dissection, observing internal relationships and appreciating the reactions to lesions and correlating with history that one arrives at correct opinions to cause and manner of death. If you really want to know “what happened?”, speak to us at www.theautopsydoctor.com

Final Diagnosis, Inc. is one of the only free-standing private autopsy facilities in the United States.  A further unique feature is that it  is owned and operated exclusively by a board certified forensic, anatomic and clinical pathologist, Dr. Daniel L. Schultz, M.D.  Dr. Schultz is highly experienced having personally performed roughly 6000 autopsies in 28 years.   He personally does the private autopsy, or an equally trained forensic pathologist,  from start to finish.  Some autopsy services use lay technicians to do the exam or have little experience with trauma and/or legal issues.  The initial consultation is free, and doesn’t always lead to a private autopsy.   Knowing when to autopsy is half the battle.  Final Diagnosis, Inc. and Dr. Schultz are here first to listen.   Call 727-639-1897 or email us for an initial consultation.  That means Dr. Schultz does not automatically accept every death for a private autopsy.   If the question is simply “what happened?” or “what did not happen?”, we may be able to answer that without the private autopsy.

A current outbreak over 100 individuals sickened and at least three dead due to massive internal bleeding in the U.S. from  synthetic marijuana laced with rat poison has led to serious questions as to how or why this might have happened.  I have not seen anything written about reasons why such mixtures would occur or a case report (yet) in native marijuana, but recent relevant articles from some environmentalist/animal rights groups about use of rodenticides in some marijuana farms give me suspicions on how it could actually happen in naturally grown marijuana.   It is known that some marijuana crops farmers have used brodifacoum, the active ingredient in most rat poisons, in order to prevent rats from eating their prized marijuana crops.  The reason environmental and animal activist groups have raised concerns is due to the effects particularly on the upper food chain:  rats eat the poison, birds eat the rats, on and on.  Owls in particular have been reportedly killed as  a consequence of this.  One consideration that I raise is that the intended product perhaps gets grossly contaminated during the harvest process and mixed in. Keep in mind this business practice (at least while is illegal in some states) is often handled by less than knowledgeable people without quality processes in mind.   It just so happens that most rat poisons that I have encountered containing  brodifacoum do actually have a similar green color, but it is really a bit more teal or blue-green.   It remains to be seen what the source and cause of this dangerous marijuana blend may  be, but it certainly is not something that adds to the “high”.  The use by some marijuana farmers to protect the crops from rats seems to me to be the most likely culprit.   Sickening and or killing the end users certainly does not sound like an intentional business plan. But you never know.

Just because a decedent has a death certificate with the cause of death does not necessarily mean they died from that condition.   While this may seem shocking to some, death certificates are not a good statistical data source for cause of death studies.  For families, unless a competent medical autopsy is performed, knowing what really happened is a guess.

For instance, in my own experience, previously unidentified cancers can be found roughly 9% of the time.  Cancer may be an incidental finding in an isolated organ but occasionally it is widespread and even the cause of death!   A fall and an impact to the head can lead to massive and devastating  intracranial bleeds.  This is particularly a problem in individuals on blood thinners.   A variety of stealthy traumas can happen to people that are completely invisible on the outside.  I of course look for these and sometimes find them.

The point is that autopsies add value in most deaths.  Even when you think you know why they died, an autopsy very often reveals a surprise.   Even the most seemingly “obvious” cause of death such as traffic wrecks can in fact be natural deaths.   I have seen many over the years.

It becomes even more problematic when issues such as pain and suffering are questioned after a traumatic death.  If no autopsy occurs, you will never know.  It is truly what is on the inside (correlated with history of course) that counts.