G. William Moore, MD, PhD
Grover M. Hutchins, MD.
email: webmaster@netautopsy.org
April 5, 2000.
Dear netautopsy.org correspondent:
Thank you for your interest in the
Johns Hopkins Autopsy Resource (JHAR),
available at URL:
http://www.netautopsy.org/
We apologize for answering your inquiry
with a form letter, but the JHAR
has limited administrative staff,
and an individual response is not possible.
The Johns Hopkins Autopsy Resource (JHAR)
is a medical research resource.
The JHAR is NOT an educational or consultation
resource, although some educational hyperlinks
are included on the home page.
The primary purpose of the JHAR
is to make a large series of autopsy report summaries (text only)
available for medical research investigations.
There are no images of autopsy materials
available on the JHAR.
Although the JHAR contains autopsy report summaries
for over 50,000 deceased patients,
no patient identifiers are included,
and we have gone to considerable effort
to protect the privacy of individual patients.
As a policy, the JHAR does not answer inquiries
about individual patients,
and the JHAR does not offer medical or legal consultations.
If you are trying to obtain the autopsy report
on an individual patient, and you are the legal
next-of-kin, then you should address your inquiries
to the institution where the patient expired.
If the patient died outside a medical institution,
then you should inquire further at the
office of the medical examiner or the coroner
in the jurisdiction where the patient expired.
If you need help in understanding an autopsy report,
then you should consult your family physician,
who can refer you to a pathologist for further
consultation, if necessary.
If you are interested in learning more about a particular
medical condition on an individual patient,
then you should consult your family physician.
If you are interested in learning more about a particular
medical condition in general,
then you might consider the following websites:
http://www.drkoop.com/
http://www.emedicine.com/
http://www.webmd.com/
To find additional websites that address
a specific medical problem, you might place
the name of the problem into the search box
of an internet search engine, such as:
http://www.google.com/
If you are a medical professional interested in learning more about
general pathology, then we recommend:
Cotran RS, Kumar V, Collins T, Robbins SL.
Robbins Pathologic Basis of Disease. Hardcover 6th edition.
(December, 1998). W B Saunders Co.
ISBN: 072167335X .
Damjanov I, Linder J, Anderson WAD (eds).
Anderson's Pathology (2 Vol Set).
Hardcover 10th edition. (January, 1996)
Mosby-Year Book.
ISBN: 0801672368.
If you are a medical professional interested in learning more about
forensic pathology, then we recommend:
Spitz WU (ed).
Spitz and Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation of Death:
Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigation.
Hardcover 3rd edition.
(December, 1993). Charles C Thomas Pub Ltd;
ISBN: 0398058180.
If you are a medical professional interested in learning more about
surgical pathology, then we recommend:
Silverberg SG, Delellis RA, Frable W (eds).
Principles and Practice of Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology.
(May, 1997). Churchill Livingstone;
ISBN: 0443075417.
Rosai J, Ackerman LV.
Ackerman's Surgical Pathology.
Hardcover 8th edition. 2-Volume Set
(January, 1996). Mosby-Year Book;
ISBN: 0801670047 .
If you do not have easy access to a medical bookstore, then many
of these medical books may be ordered over the Internet at URL:
http://www.amazon.com/
For persons unfamiliar with the field of pathology and autopsies,
a CORONER is a person who obtains information about a recently deceased
person, nowadays, usually of a medical or criminal nature. The term
coroner comes from the Latin, CORONA, meaning crown. The original
purpose of the coroner was to make certain that the king, or crown,
collected all the taxes, inheritances, etc., that were due to him.
A PATHOLOGIST has many different functions, but one of these functions
is to perform autopsies. If there is a suspicious death, then
the autopsy may be performed or supervised by the MEDICAL EXAMINER,
a pathologist who specializes in possible criminal autopsies.
Different states have different regulations for medical examiners.
Some states require only an M.D.; others require at least
two years' training in ANATOMIC PATHOLOGY. In other states,
the medical examiner must have additional training in FORENSIC PATHOLOGY,
and pass an examination in this field.
If you are considering pathology as a career choice, then you must
be an excellent student, with strong abilities in the biological
and physical sciences, and a willingness to work diligently for many years
before reaching your goal. After high school, a pathologist-in-training
must complete four years of college, four years of medical school,
five years of pathology residency, and pass a difficult three-day examination
for board certification. Many pathologists take one or two years
of additional training in order to qualify for the most competitive jobs.
You may read more at URLs:
http://www.cap.org/
http://www.abms.org/
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely yours,
G. William Moore, MD, PhD
Grover M. Hutchins, MD.