Jonathan Thompson, IA State Medical Examiner's Office, arranged by Bob Wiley
Jonathan is one of four Medical Examiners for the State of Iowa. Their jurisdiction covers all of Iowa except for Des Moines and Iowa City. Each of the four MEs performs approximately 200 autopsies per year. Jonathan has been an ME with the State of Iowa since 2008. He received his MD from the University of Iowa.
Jonathan explained their role is to investigate deaths which may affect the public interest. Once engaged, they are tasked to assigning one of five possible causes of death. Those causes and their relative share of the total cases examined are listed below:
50% Natural Causes
35% Accidental
8% Suicide
5% Homicide
2% Unassigned
Jonathan went on to present a short course on what to look for in examining a body to determine cause of death, including images from previous cases. Examples he presented included, burns, gun shots (close and intermediate range), abrasions, lacerations, punctures, blunt trauma and arterial plaque build-up. He also showed examples that, while compelling, were not the cause of death, including hickies and post-mortem dog, cat and fish activity
He then presented 5 cases that we were tasked with determining cause of death.