Overview and Purpose
More than 25 years ago, the Division of Forensic and Environmental Pathology of Saint Louis University School of Medicine recognized the need to train and develop medicolegal death investigator professionals. More than 75 Medicolegal Death Investigator Training courses have been conducted since the course’s inception in 1978. Offered three times each year, this five (5) day program teaches individuals how to conduct scientific, systematic and thorough death scene and telephone investigations for Medical Examiner and Coroner offices. This training is equally valuable to police officers, physicians, nurses, emergency medical personnel, attorneys, forensic scientists and others who are involved with the investigation of violent, suspicious or unexpected deaths that fall under the jurisdiction of medicolegal authorities.
The purpose of this course is to train individuals to fill a critical role in medicolegal offices. With the training program offered at Saint Louis University, medicolegal death investigators learn to develop the essential facts regarding the death scene, medical history and other information that assists the Medical Examiner/Coroner in the determination of a person’s cause and manner of death. The course is designed to teach the 29 national guidelines as set forth in the National Institutes of Justice 1999 publication, Death Investigation: A Guide for the Scene Investigator. The investigator will then be instructed in the proper way to disseminate the information to forensic scientists and law enforcement personnel so that a coordinated, efficient and complete death investigation can be achieved. At the conclusion of the course, students will be assessed as to knowledge gained.
Lectures will be presented by forensic specialists on all major categories of deaths that occur in medicolegal jurisdictions with particular emphasis placed on the investigator’s role in the death investigation. Basic death scene investigation techniques are stressed and investigative procedures will be thoroughly discussed. The lectures assist the investigator to understand the importance and value of scene and body evidence. This course emphasizes the medical aspects of death investigation and is not designed to be a homicide seminar.
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