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Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Drug-related deaths overburden Maryland medical examiner's office

The opioid epidemic that has claimed so many lives in Maryland is overwhelming the state medical examiner's office.

The agency has exceeded national caseload standards — the number of autopsies a single pathologist should perform in a year — in each of the past four years. The office now risks losing its accreditation.

"Everyone continues to add on work hours and work faster and hopefully not take short cuts," said Dr. David R. Fowler, Maryland's chief medical examiner. "They absorb this extra load. But there is a point where they can't continue to add to that and expect the system will function."

The challenge is not limited to Maryland. The combination of additional and more complex cases is overwhelming medical examiners' offices across the country, particularly along the East Coast, leaving many on the verge of losing accreditation.


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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep it up junkies. You have the Darwin theory in overdrive.

Anonymous said...

Why do autopsies when they die due to an overdose??? They know the risk, have we forgotten the old TV advertisement...."why do you think they call it DOPE"? Bury them period save the expense.

Rebel Without a Clue said...

If the death is by a suspected OD then why not do a simple blood test and call the case closed? There should be no need to spread the deceased one's chest and do internal examinations.

Anonymous said...

Oh but see, that's not the important issues right now. The Maryland General Assembly is too busy with pushing green energy and illegal aliens along with their crime on our population. They don't have time to entertain such things as drugs and overdoses. To them, that's merely population control.

Anonymous said...

Legalize pot and no one dies

Anonymous said...

I thought millions are being spent fighting the heroin problem.