Catch 22 No More!
Twenty-two lessons learned as a chief medical examiner.
Prior to entering private practice, Dr. Young served as the Jackson County Medical Examiner in Kansas City, Missouri from 1995 to 2006. His tenure as a medical examiner was highly successful at a time when most medical examiner and coroner offices struggle with declining budgets and political stress. Dr. Young discovered how to be successful as a medical examiner, and he shares the lessons he learned in this on-line book.
Table of Contents
- Forward
- Lesson 1: Always be ready to leave your job.
- Lesson 2: Never underestimate the potential of a troubled office.
- Lesson 3: Good death investigation is inexpensive (bad death investigation is costly).
- Lesson 4: Demand good salaries.
- Lesson 5: Make money for the office, not yourself.
- Lesson 6: Ask for what you need and no more.
- Lesson 7: Wield “The Big Stick” for the office.
- Lesson 8: Think ahead. Think way ahead!
- Lesson 9: Set a positive example.
- Lesson 10: Go slow at first.
- Lesson 11: Don’t blame the person--fix the system.
- Lesson 12: Keep a low profile.
- Lesson 13: If someone can do a job as well or better than you, ask him or her to do it.
- Lesson 14: Hire investigators with varying backgrounds and skills and train them well.
- Lesson 15: Invest your investigators with authority and power at the death scene.
- Lesson 16: Have investigators do most of the external body examinations.
- Lesson 17: Do not routinely send pathologists to scenes.
- Lesson 18: Use computers and technology to save time and money.
- Lesson 19: Digital photography is a boon to modern death investigation.
- Lesson 20: Contract with outside forensic pathologists for coverage.
- Lesson 21: Buy a dishwasher.
- Lesson 22: You can never say “thank you” enough.
- Acknowledgements