Statistically, there is no reason to autopsy all deaths or even most of them and to do so would be a fantastic waste of resources. A random sampling would suffice. What we do now is probably not random, and not sure it ever could be given the need to defer to family wishes, religious requirements, etc. in cases where no foul play is suspected.
We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#22"In the United States, we usually don’t autopsy people unless the cause of death is mysterious or foul play is suspected." In any case, health insurance doesn't cover autopsy. Turns out its classified as postmortem to deny insurance coverage. there was an hour long special on NPR sometime in 2014.
Why should health insurance cover autopsy? Given no chance of "recovery" from the condition, there's no health interest to the subscriber, right?
If it's for the public good then it ought to be paid from taxes. If it's just to satisfy the curiosity of friends and family then maybe they could pay for it themselves. Unless it'll somehow bring the deceased back to life, it would be weird for health insurance to cover an autopsy.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#23I understand that there are 1400 different brands of over-the-counter medication that contain acetaminophen. That's what destroyed my father's liver.
Is there some rational reason you downvoted this? He was taking tylenol for neuralgia. It harmed his liver so bad he had severe jaundice. He was barely able to walk and was completely unable to speak. He died at the age of 68.
Maybe because it's completely off topic?
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#24"In the United States, we usually don’t autopsy people unless the cause of death is mysterious or foul play is suspected." In any case, health insurance doesn't cover autopsy. Turns out its classified as postmortem to deny insurance coverage. there was an hour long special on NPR sometime in 2014.
Why should health insurance cover autopsy? Given no chance of "recovery" from the condition, there's no health interest to the subscriber, right?
Not to the subscriber that has passed, but insurance companies may benefit from the knowledge acquired from autopsies. Analysis could reveal that if the company covered some drug/procedure, the overall usage rate per subscribe decreases, saving them money in the long run.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#25How do I _prevent_ an autopsy from being performed on me? As a cryonicist, I find what is being advocated for very scary...
You may not remember, but part of the cryo signup process involves declaring a religious objection to autopsy.[1] (No state has an irreligious objection to autopsy, but they don't ask for specifics.) In California, a court order is required to override it. I don't think that has ever happened. A medical examiner would only go to the courts if you were patient zero in some sort of outbreak. 1. http://www.alcor.org/Lib…
Using a religious objection for this seems appropriate. The belief that you can live forever by if your body is frozen after death is more or less the same as the belief that you can live forever if your body is intact and you worshipped the right deity.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#26"Not really; not always; and sometimes not even with causes of death you’d think would show up easily in a good scan. Doctors take far too much confidence in scan results, feeling they see everything with certainty. They don’t. As a Florida coroner told me a few years ago, “We get this all the time. The doctors get our report and call and say, ‘But there can’t be a lacerated aorta. We did a whole set of scans.’" I wo…
Wow, that would be an incredible source of data and a boon to the world. Imagine if it were 1) required by all deaths, and 2) freely released to researchers (for research purposes).
Even better if it included doctors' notes, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment before death.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#27former pathology resident here- disagree. The main reason we do fewer autopsies is because of better diagnostics while the patient is alive. The numbers they provide for significant changes in diagnosis based on autopsy seem pretty high (based only on my own experience). Even the examples they pick for the article are kind of lame- it wasn't St. louis encephalitis, it was west nile! Um...so? Do we have a treatment no…
> Would they have done something different knowing that it was west nile
Considering it reinforced the value proposition of county, state, and federal epidemiology units, all of whom are now monitoring crow populations, and it has launched a significant amount of research, and every primary care and ER doctor now looks for symptoms, yes, I do believe something is different.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#28"Not really; not always; and sometimes not even with causes of death you’d think would show up easily in a good scan. Doctors take far too much confidence in scan results, feeling they see everything with certainty. They don’t. As a Florida coroner told me a few years ago, “We get this all the time. The doctors get our report and call and say, ‘But there can’t be a lacerated aorta. We did a whole set of scans.’" I wo…
We do postmortem scans of all autopsies at our hospital. We still do the actual autopsy too. Lots of stuff is still required such as toxicology specimens (including toxicology of solid organ tissue like liver), There's also a fair amount of artifact in autopsy scans due to lack of blood flow, medical interventions (CPR-induced lung contusions, broken ribs, hemorrhages, etc)
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#29I'm donating my body to science. I don't see much use in having a death ceremony involving my body. Will probably be much cheaper for my family too.
You may still get autopsied. If you die of an accident, unexpectedly, or as the result of a homicide, suicide, or just because you're physician won't sign a death certificate or hasn't seen you in the last year.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#30"In the United States, we usually don’t autopsy people unless the cause of death is mysterious or foul play is suspected." In any case, health insurance doesn't cover autopsy. Turns out its classified as postmortem to deny insurance coverage. there was an hour long special on NPR sometime in 2014.
Why should health insurance cover autopsy? Given no chance of "recovery" from the condition, there's no health interest to the subscriber, right?
If you believe that subscribers don't have an interest in improving medicine, then yes. But medical care and the health care industry as a whole are more complicated than this.