decision making in histopathology and forensic pathology

Archimedes thoughtful (Domenico Fetti 1620)

Source: Wikimedia

For some time it has occurred to me to wonder by what method, in the past, I arrived at the conclusions that I did in relation to the autopsies that I performed. At the time it seemed very straightforward. I would carry out the dissection, make the observations, and reach some conclusions with relatively little effort, apparently by making some process of inspiration. If anyone had asked me to explain the process, which fortunately no one did, I would probably have said that 'it was all a matter of experience', implying that frequent contact with a range of scenes of death and subsequent autopsies had implanted into my mind some kind of innate ability to discover the truth about the circumstances of a case, without going through any conscious scheme of thought.

Nowadays, in retirement, I sometimes wonder how reliable my flashes of inspiration were, and what would have happened if, in Court, I had been asked to explain the processes of my reasoning. I am sure that I would have had difficulty ...

Professor David Gee (1995)

• Reaching conclusions in forensic pathology. Gee DJ. Medicine, Science, and the Law 1995;
• Diagnostic decision-making in anatomic pathology. Foucar E. American Journal of Clinical Pathology 2001; 116 Suppl: S21-33
• Do pathologists play dice? Uncertainty and early histopathological diagnosis of common malignancies. Foucar E. Histopathology 1997; 31:495-502
• Deciding the cause of death after necropsy. Cordner SM. The Lancet 1993; 341:1458-1460
• Deciding the cause of death after autopsy - revisited. Pollanen MS. Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine 2005; 12:113-121
• Complexity and forensic pathology. Jones RM. Forensic Science International 2015; 257: e38-e43
• Grading and scoring in histopathology. Cross SS. Histopathology 1998; 33:99-106
• Decision analysis in forensic science. Taroni F, Bozza S, Aitken C. Journal of Forensic Sciences 2005; 50:894-905
• decision making (Wikipedia)
• rational decision making (Wikipedia)
• reasoning (Wikipedia)
• deductive reasoning (Wikipedia)
• logic portal (Wikipedia)
• evidence based medicine (Wikipedia)
• the scientific method (Wikipedia)
• evidence based medicine literature resources (Connotea)
• Original research in pathology: judgement, or evidence-based medicine? Crawford JM. Laboratory Investigation 2007; 87: 104-114
• Evidence Based Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. Marchevsky AM, Wick M. (Eds) Springer 2011
• the surgical sieve - diagnostic guide presented as a 'London tube map-style' illustration (via the BMJ)

clinical decision making on Pinterest

Follow Richard's board Clinical decision making and diagnosis on Pinterest.

complexity in forensic pathology - deaths in custody (or following police contact) on Pinterest

Follow Richard's board Deaths following police contact or in custody on Pinterest.