RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The slow death of the clinical post-mortem examination: implications for clinical audit, diagnostics and medical education
JF Clinical Medicine
JO Clin Med
FD Royal College of Physicians
SP 417
OP 423
DO 10.7861/clinmedicine.4-5-417
VO 4
IS 5
A1 Urszula Carr
A1 Lesley Bowker
A1 Richard Y Ball
YR 2004
UL http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/4/5/417.abstract
AB The adult clinical post-mortem examination has seriously declined in Norwich recently, with only 34 of them (representing 1.4% of deaths in hospital) having been undertaken in 2003. Moreover, the next-of-kin are increasingly restricting the extent of the examination when they give consent. Analogous but less severe changes have occurred in the post-mortem examination of stillbirths and perinates. Many clinicians are unaware of these events, which may come to have wide-ranging detrimental effects. One possible cause is the lack of training of junior medical staff in obtaining consent for postmortem examination, though other factors are also important.