WHAT AUTOPSY IS ALL ABOUT

Autopsy is the examination of a cadaver to
determine or confirm the cause of death . Also called necropsy or postmortem.

Autopsies are performed for either legal or
medical purposes. For example, a forensic
autopsy is carried out when the cause of death may be a criminal matter, while a clinical or academic autopsy is performed
to find the medical cause of death and is used in cases of unknown or uncertain death, or for research purposes.

Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices, and those where the body is dissected and internal examination is conducted.

Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases. Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is reconstituted by sewing it back together.

Purpose
The principal aim of an autopsy is to determine the cause of death, the state of health of the person before he or she died, and whether any medical diagnosis and treatment before death was appropriate.

In most Western countries the number of
autopsies performed in hospitals has been
decreasing every year since 1955. Critics,
including pathologist and former JAMA editor George Lundberg , have charged that the reduction in autopsies is negatively affecting the care delivered in hospitals, because when mistakes result in death, they are often not investigated and lessons therefore remain unlearned.

When a person has given permission in advance of their death, autopsies may also be carried out for the purposes of teaching or medical research.

An autopsy is frequently performed in cases of sudden death, where a doctor is not able to write a death certificate, or when death is believed to result from an unnatural cause.

These examinations are performed under a legal authority ( Medical Examiner or Coroner or Procurator Fiscal) and do not require the consent of relatives of the deceased.

The most extreme example is the
examination of murder victims, especially when medical examiners are looking for signs of death or the murder method, such as bullet wounds and exit points, signs of
strangulation , or traces of poison.

Some religions including Judaism and Islam usually discourage the performing of autopsies on their adherents. Organizations such as Zaka in Israel and Misaskim in the USA generally guide families how to ensure that an unnecessary autopsy is not made.

Autopsies are used in clinical medicine to identify medical error.