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Letter: Forensic scientist clarifies role of coroners

With respect to the article, “Body in the creek: No obvious cause of death, says coroner,” the writer states that the coroner “had not yet performed a post-mortem on the body.
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Finding a family doctor can be extremely frustrating and the bureaucracy can be a challenge to navigate. File photo
With respect to the article, “Body in the creek: No obvious cause of death, says coroner,” the writer states that the coroner “had not yet performed a post-mortem on the body.”

By way of clarification, coroners themselves do not perform autopsies on bodies.

In Ontario, the coroner conducts a death investigation in such situations. Under the Coroner’s Act, the coroner is the legal investigative authority into deaths under a variety of circumstances.

A coroner must be a medical doctor under this provincial legislation (in fact, most local coroners are family practitioners). As such, the coroner may issue a warrant for a post-mortem examination to be done. But the coroner is not qualified as a pathologist to do the actual examination.

For example, in Sudbury, this examination is done through the Northeast Regional Forensic Pathology Unit at Health Sciences North. The examination itself is conducted by a “board certified” forensic pathologist.

Forensic pathologists who undertake medico-legal autopsies do so under the auspices of the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service. This means that those who conduct medico-legal autopsies have to be thoroughly vetted by the OFPS. Under recent changes, a forensic pathologist in the OFSP may elect to be the coroner in certain circumstances.

I hope this helps to clear up any misconceptions as to the role of the coroner and the forensic pathologist.

Dr. S. Fairgrieve,
chair, Dept. of Forensic Science
Laurentian University