I wasn't aware of how many motorcycle accidents that result in death there are until this summer. However, it seems to me that a lot of the motorcycle deaths are not of Harley riders, but those who ride the speed bikes. They tend to be willing to take more risks and go much faster. These are the people that weave in and out of lanes when there is a lot of traffic. And, as I have mentioned before, alcohol and any kind of vehicle does not mix. It also seems that elderly people should think twice before they get behind the wheel. Not only are they putting themselves in danger, but they are endangering the lives of others on the road.

One of the cases the other day was a man who was a steriod user. He had a whole lot of muscle under his skin, but the bad thing was that his heart was incredibly enlarged. He was a fairly young who just dropped dead. The cause of death is pending toxicology results.

Yup, it appears to be a homicide (pending toxicology results). An elderly woman poisoned her husband and then tried to kill herself.

I noticed in one of the comments that people like that I don't go into the gore associated with the autopsies. I do that for a reason. I know that a lot of people get squeamish when they think about blood and guts. Thats not to say that I will not describe a particularly unusual sight (such as the guy who blew his head off with a shotgun), but I will not go deep into the gory details. I've noticed that when I tell people about my experience, they are interested in the cases, but as soon as I start talking about blood, they lose their interest. The so-called blood and guts is what actually interests me. As a biology major, I am very much interested in what makes the body work. I don't really see the "blood and guts" as being gory or grotesque. I view the organs in much the same way a mechanic would view the parts of a car. They are necessary to make the body run, but there can be problems if one of the parts does not work correctly. A surgeon is like a human mechanic who fixes these broken parts. A pathologist is kind of like the guy who sees why the body stopped working all together. Then there are the organ donor networks who utilize the scrap parts so that another body can be fixed. It seems kind of insensitive to reduce the human body down to nothing but a collection of parts working together, but it is an effective way to practice medicine.

This brings me to another point. It seems that there is not much research going on in the field of forensic pathology. There is some, but it doesn't even come close to the research that is done on things like cardiology, immunology, neurology, and oncology. Not only do these fields get a substantial amount of public funding, but there are large private funders for these research projects. As one of the pathologist puts it, there does not seem to be a high demand for some to write a research report on the exact mechanisms and results of an intraoral gunshot. So it seems that a lot of forensic pathology research is limited to people doing doctoral dissertations and small funded projects. A forensic pathologist usually does not have time to conduct research. Between doing autopsies and subsequent analysis, writing up the paperwork, and appearing in court, a medical examiner does not have much free time.

7 week old baby yesterday. Mother tripped and crushed the babies soft skull. Today we had a couple of OD's and motor vehicle accidents. One of the OD's was positive for morphine (morphine is one of the breakdown products of heroin in the body) and cocaine. Looks like a speedball gone bad (not like they are ever good). Another possible homicide for tomorrow. A forensic team was going out to investigate, so we'll see.