Not all weekends are all about music, food, party and abundance of all what is around. This weekend I had the chance to do something very different in the eyes of others. I guess a lot of people even would feel weirded out or even get nautious just but the thought of going here.
I went to a lecture of one of the most famous forensic pathologists in the country. To listen tot a talk of the misconceptions on causes of death and the biased assumptions we make while working in healthcare.
As I said...slightly odd but damn interesting!
Pixabay
In surgery when a patient unfortunately dies suddenly usually we have an idea what was the cause of this. That is mostly because we monitor a lot of parameters continuously and because of what we have suspicions of what is going on with a patient. We can create direct actions to something.
But especially more in the 'outside' world where not everything is monitored all the time (at home, in a nursing home) it can be very challenging to see what the cause is of someones passing. Because you can only get your data from what you find later on.
And from that data, you make assumptions
That is the difference in what we do in the medical world versus the forensic world. In the medical world you take the information on what you know from your patient, and use that as a lead on what might be the issue. Someone complains of a belly ache, you examine the belly. If someone has complaints to their knee, you do tests on their knee because that is the information you have been given
Forensics are different. You just examine everything, and take it from there on what you find without making assumptions.
'You find grandma dead on the bottom of the stairs. Her glasses lay next to her. What killed her?
Something with her vision you think, because of the glasses that were lying there?
No, gravity and a blunt force trauma from when she hit her head on the stairs. That is what killed her, not her glasses or poor eye sight'
Ouch,that is an entirely different way of thinking for the medical mind and leaving every piece of information that you know and what to use behind.
As the speaker would declare himself as a autistically working profession, he talked about a difference perception on causes of death. Often there will be spoken for instance on cause of death because of 'heart failure'. Nice container overview word which describes actually nothing specific. The failing of the heart is the result of something else. And that something else is the cause of death.
'Despression is one of the leading causes of death at the moment' is described a lot at the moment. But depressing itself doesn't kill you. it is the action beyond that is the actual cause of death. Asphyxiation or medication intoxication resulting in cardiac arrest is what happens.
I like these kinds of other and different ways of thinking. It doesn't change the result of someone being deceased or not, but it does change the way of thinking around causes of death. The main reason why you would want to know? Enheritable diseases and the awareness around them with maybe preventing something on the bloodline.
Pixabay
At the moment most autopsies here in Holland are done in the name of justice to see if there is fowl play involved, and if there is someone to blame for. And because of this low amount of autopsies often you don't really get the whole picure of what is going on.
Because most likely, there is always something to find.
Many thanks to the speaker Frank van der Goot !!
