A History of Autopsy – Who Gets to Ask Questions of the Dead?

Content warning: This episode contains discussions and descriptions of post-mortem examinations and some graphic references to the human body. Some content may be distressing, triggering or offensive to certain listeners. Please take care when listening and feel free to skip this episode if you feel it may not be suitable for you.

Who gets to ask questions of the dead? And how do we find out what really happened when someone dies?

This week, we're getting under the skin of autopsy – exploring its history, its purpose and the people involved in investigating deaths today.

As usual, Emma has plenty of questions. Carrie, our resident Anatomical Pathology Technician, is expected to have all the answers. Apparently, being an expert in your field means you're also required to pass an impromptu oral examination whenever your co-host fancies one.

We explore the modern coroner system in England and Wales, what happens when a death is referred to the coroner, and who actually decides whether a post-mortem examination is necessary. We talk about why families don't always get to make that decision, how post-mortem imaging and CT scans are changing the way deaths are investigated, and what happens when even the most thorough examination can't provide all the answers.

We also get into the difference between a post-mortem and an inquest – because, as it turns out, they're not the same thing.

And where does the ATP fit into all of this? Carrie explains what her work actually involves, what she's looking for during an examination, the anatomical knowledge required, and why an autopsy is about considerably more than simply opening a body and looking at the organs.

We ask some of the questions people might be curious about but perhaps wouldn't know who to ask:

· Can someone appear perfectly healthy externally, while the cause of their death is hidden inside an organ?

· Can you establish how someone died without knowing exactly what happened in their final hours?

· Can modern technology sometimes provide answers without the need for a full internal examination?

· And after all the science, investigation and examination, what happens when there still isn't a definitive answer?

Along the way, we discuss the misconceptions surrounding post-mortems, the human side of working with the dead, and whether spending your working life understanding how people die changes the way you think about your own mortality.

We finish with a question that takes us beyond the science:

Carrie, we spend so much of our lives trying to understand how people die. But do you think your work has taught you anything about how we should live?

Because understanding death can sometimes teach us an awful lot about life.

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