{"id":110,"date":"2009-04-21T12:35:37","date_gmt":"2009-04-21T11:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/?p=110"},"modified":"2009-04-21T12:35:37","modified_gmt":"2009-04-21T11:35:37","slug":"post-mortems-by-mri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/04\/21\/post-mortems-by-mri\/","title":{"rendered":"Post Mortems by MRI?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BBC is reporting<\/a> that families may be able to request that post-mortems be carried out by MRI rather than invasively under new proposals.\u00a0 The qualification here is that<\/p>\n

[c]oroners [would] make the decision on a case-by-case basis as MRI scans may not always be the appropriate means to determining a cause of death, the government said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This looks fairly reasonable in many ways.\u00a0 The point of a post-mortem is to discover the cause of death; opening up a few corpses has been, up until recently, the most efficient way to do this; but there’s nothing special about opening them up.\u00a0 If we can learn the same non-invasively – and, sometimes, we can – then there is no need to be invasive.\u00a0 Indeed, it might be a less efficient way to go about things, in which case an invasive procedure would perhaps be a waste of resources and therefore (on the assumption that waste is wrong) morally problematic.<\/p>\n

However, I do have a residual worry about the family being able to request an MRI examination instead of evisceration.\u00a0 The decision to pursue a post-mortem has to do with questions of justice and of public health – and, to this extent, it’s unclear why the family has any privileged position.\u00a0 If I objected to invasive post-mortems as a rule, then the fact that I am (or was) related to the corpse doesn’t seem to add much; and if it would be strange for me to request an MRI examination on a non-relative, and stranger yet to have that request granted\u00a0– and it would – then it’s not clear why familial relationships should be any different.<\/p>\n

There’s another problem:<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said that “justice and establishing the cause of death will always come first” but the new system will allow some flexibility “if it is a straightforward case”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But how do we know in advance what is straightforward?\u00a0 The recent case of the death of Ian Tomlinson is a salutary warning<\/a>: quite aside from questions surrounding the circumstances of his death, his is a case in which it was thought to be reasonably straightforward… and we’re now onto our third PM.\u00a0 His is a graphic example, but the point stands that even “traditional” PMs do not always give clear results, and we don’t always know whether we ought to be looking for something non-straightforward until the knives have come out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BBC is reporting that families may be able to request that post-mortems be carried out by MRI rather than invasively under new proposals.\u00a0 The qualification here is that [c]oroners [would] make the decision on a case-by-case basis as MRI scans may not always be the appropriate means to determining a cause of death, the […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[511,591],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-life-and-death"],"yoast_head":"\nPost Mortems by MRI? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/04\/21\/post-mortems-by-mri\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Post Mortems by MRI? - Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The BBC is reporting that families may be able to request that post-mortems be carried out by MRI rather than invasively under new proposals.\u00a0 The qualification here is that [c]oroners [would] make the decision on a case-by-case basis as MRI scans may not always be the appropriate means to determining a cause of death, the [...]Read More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-ethics\/2009\/04\/21\/post-mortems-by-mri\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Journal of Medical Ethics blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-21T11:35:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2009\\\/04\\\/21\\\/post-mortems-by-mri\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2009\\\/04\\\/21\\\/post-mortems-by-mri\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"BMJ\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ba3da426ed20e8f1d933ca367d8216fe\"},\"headline\":\"Post Mortems by MRI?\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-04-21T11:35:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2009\\\/04\\\/21\\\/post-mortems-by-mri\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":416,\"commentCount\":5,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"In the News\",\"Life and Death\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2009\\\/04\\\/21\\\/post-mortems-by-mri\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2009\\\/04\\\/21\\\/post-mortems-by-mri\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-ethics\\\/2009\\\/04\\\/21\\\/post-mortems-by-mri\\\/\",\"name\":\"Post Mortems by MRI? 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