| Date: 30 April 2011, 08:22
|
There are about 25,000 physicians in the U.S. engaged in the practice of Diagnostic Radiology. No more than three dozen of them have had enough experience or interest in Forensic Radiology to have published in the ?eld. Just over a handful have had suf?cient involvement to have become members of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS), and only three of those have satis?ed the requirements for Fellowships in that organization.
There is no set de?nition or standard for a “Forensic Radiologist”. There is no specialized training or fellowship available in that ?eld; there is no separate Society for Forensic Radiology, nor is there certi?cation for a subspecialty or added quali?cation in Forensic Radiology. It is doubtful that any radiologist in North America, regardless of his level of interest, devotes as much as 10% of his active practice to Forensic Radiology.
Those few of us who do maintain some continuing, albeit sporadic, activity in Forensic Radiology mostly became involved by happenstance, circumstance, curiosity, or just plain good luck. My own introduction to the fascination of forensic problems came in the mid 1960s when I was Radiologist-in-Charge of the Division of Diagnostic Radiology at Johns Hopkins. The famous Dr. Russell S. Fisher (Figure 1), longtime Medical Examiner of the State of Maryland and AAFS President in 1960–1961, ?rst asked for my help in sorting out the commingled body parts of two children (only 15 months apart in age) who were victims of a light aircraft accident. Later, he allowed me to help in other cases. I was hooked for life.
When I left Johns Hopkins to accept the Chair of Radiology at the ?edgling School of Medicine at the University of New Mexico, good fortune followed me to Albuquerque. I had several years there of exhilarating experience working with two outstanding forensic scientists, Jim Weston and Homer Campbell (Figure 2). When Jim came to New Mexico he designed and built both a model state-wide Medical Examiners system and a state-ofthe-art Forensic Sciences building on the medical center campus. He already was a world ?gure in Forensic Pathology and served as President of AAFS in 1976–1977. His untimely death during one of his daily morning runs on the UNM golf course was a great loss to the Forensic Sciences. Homer Campbell at that time was in the practice of General Dentistry and pursued an interest in Forensic Odontology as a part-time avocation. Homer was, in fact,
my
dentist and cleaned my teeth twice a year. (Fortunately, I never needed Jim Weston’s professional services!) Later, Homer left his practice in favor of full-time forensic work and became President of the AAFS in 1991–1992.
Since coming to the University of South Alabama in 1978, I have enjoyed an entirely pleasant professional and personal relationship with LeRoy Riddick, a trainee of the legendary Milton Helpern, and now Professor of Pathology and Alabama State Medical Examiner (Figure 3). Roy and his associates and fellows (several of whom have gone on to responsible positions of their own) have invariably treated me with a most gratifying and warm collegiality as their Consultant in Forensic Radiology.
As my participation in forensic activities and meetings increased, I was astounded by the volume of radiologic images presented and/or published by (of necessity) non-radiologists — dentists, pathologists, physical anthropologists, and other forensic scientists. I have been astonished at the good quality of some of those images and saddened by how awfully bad others were. I have seen colleagues struggle with the interpretation of conditions that are well known and easily recognized by almost any radiologist. I have watched others agonize over problems that could be approached rather easily by the radiologic method. I have reviewed elaborate and costly research projects based on null hypotheses both proved and disproved years ago in our discipline. On the other hand, I
|
DISCLAIMER:
This site does not store Forensic Radiology on its server. We only index and link to Forensic Radiology provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete Forensic Radiology if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
|
 |
|
Comments (0)
All
