ME day 2
My first two days at the ME's have been accompanied by mysterious crippling nausea of unknown origin, blunting my initial desire to blog ravenously about my experiences. I'm hoping that the nausea is not of the existential variety, as it will subsequently be a long month. Nonetheless, a few thoughts:
Things that happened that I expected:
1. The bodies have generally been the apparent "usual" first-of-the-month old people that have died alone in their residences -- called "solitaries" by the MEs. Apparently there's a bunch of these cases at the beginning of every month when landlords come in to check on tenants that haven't paid their rent.
2. I did indeed learn on my first day how to collect vitreous humor, that is, to stick a long needle into both eyes to collect fluid for electrolyte and toxicology analysis. Sticking a needle into the eye was only gross for the initial puncture - once in the eye, it didn't seem as gross. Plus, the eyes looked pretty dead, so it wasn't as freaky as I had suspected.
3. The medical examiners have awesome big black jackets with "Medical Examiner" in yellow on the back. They look very bad ass.
4. I saw my first forensic case yesterday - a 20-something woman who died in her car after a late night car crash. She had a bunch of blunt force injuries -- "pulpified" liver (a new term for me), a huge gash on her forehead, a bruise from her(only partially worn) seatbelt, a huge scalp bruise, many broken ribs, and bruises around the heart. The cause of death was massive bleeding from her internal injuries due to blunt force trauma. We treated the case like a homicide, and collected a million things for testing -- vitreous fluid, spinal fluid, blood, bile, stomach contents, hair, small pieces of organs -- and then labeled them all in a complicated color-coded labeling system where multiple labels are applied, with the last labels wrapped around the side and tops of the samples and signed for chain of custody purposes.
5. Today, I got to go to court and watch the chief ME testify in a case that sounded like a hit-and-run. It was cool to watch how she phrased her testimony -- a lot of semantics and restating questions and over-stating the obvious. Lots of hedge-y words like "could be consistent with". There was a long discussion over the definition of what a pole is, exactly, and also what an abrasion was. Everyone was wearing pinstriped suits.
Things that I learned that I didn't expect:
1. That we evaluate something called "rodent activity".
2. That my bookshelf would contain a radiologic atlas of torture.
3. That I would get homework that involved extensive practice in writing the cause and manner of death.
4. That the MEs here make $250+ a year!
5. That the MEs also get to wear big firemen hats that say "Medical Examiner".
I'm "on call" tonight, meaning that the ME on call will call me if she gets called to any crime scenes. Crime scenes!
Things that happened that I expected:
1. The bodies have generally been the apparent "usual" first-of-the-month old people that have died alone in their residences -- called "solitaries" by the MEs. Apparently there's a bunch of these cases at the beginning of every month when landlords come in to check on tenants that haven't paid their rent.
2. I did indeed learn on my first day how to collect vitreous humor, that is, to stick a long needle into both eyes to collect fluid for electrolyte and toxicology analysis. Sticking a needle into the eye was only gross for the initial puncture - once in the eye, it didn't seem as gross. Plus, the eyes looked pretty dead, so it wasn't as freaky as I had suspected.
3. The medical examiners have awesome big black jackets with "Medical Examiner" in yellow on the back. They look very bad ass.
4. I saw my first forensic case yesterday - a 20-something woman who died in her car after a late night car crash. She had a bunch of blunt force injuries -- "pulpified" liver (a new term for me), a huge gash on her forehead, a bruise from her(only partially worn) seatbelt, a huge scalp bruise, many broken ribs, and bruises around the heart. The cause of death was massive bleeding from her internal injuries due to blunt force trauma. We treated the case like a homicide, and collected a million things for testing -- vitreous fluid, spinal fluid, blood, bile, stomach contents, hair, small pieces of organs -- and then labeled them all in a complicated color-coded labeling system where multiple labels are applied, with the last labels wrapped around the side and tops of the samples and signed for chain of custody purposes.
5. Today, I got to go to court and watch the chief ME testify in a case that sounded like a hit-and-run. It was cool to watch how she phrased her testimony -- a lot of semantics and restating questions and over-stating the obvious. Lots of hedge-y words like "could be consistent with". There was a long discussion over the definition of what a pole is, exactly, and also what an abrasion was. Everyone was wearing pinstriped suits.
Things that I learned that I didn't expect:
1. That we evaluate something called "rodent activity".
2. That my bookshelf would contain a radiologic atlas of torture.
3. That I would get homework that involved extensive practice in writing the cause and manner of death.
4. That the MEs here make $250+ a year!
5. That the MEs also get to wear big firemen hats that say "Medical Examiner".
I'm "on call" tonight, meaning that the ME on call will call me if she gets called to any crime scenes. Crime scenes!
posted by mayfly at 6:23 PM
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