medicals in Taiwan.(2011/12/26)
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Frederick Zugibe, MD, Ph.D.(2007). Dissecting Death.商周出版：家庭傳媒城邦
In crime series, coroners are ever-present characters, furthermore, some series particularly let coroners chase suspects personally, such as “Bones”, “Dexter”. Whereas, a coroner provide more evidence when they stay at mortuaries. Evidence from coroner’s inquest carry the weight with investigation. Time of death (TOD) and cause of death (COD) are decisive for the police narrowing the number of suspects. Coroner’s report directs the way of investigation.
A professional coroner should be a forensic pathologist at the same time. They are the first ones arrive at the crime scene. In order to ensure the purity of evidence, their priority is to block the crime scene and then examine the body initially. When it is done, they pack the corpse and bring it to autopsy room for more information. Identification is the first challenge for coroner. Not all the bodies carry their cards when they died. A corpse’s face is unrecognizable usually result of rottenness or deliberately destruction. Suppose AFIS(Automated Fingerprint Identification System finds no match data, then coroner has to ask for experts’ help- a forensic dentist, an anthropologist is able to distinguish the dead’s race, sex, age, and figure by the bodies’ skeleton . It will be helpful if a forensic sculptor use computers to reconstruct the dead’s head and appearance according to the skull.
During the autopsy, coroners start with head in routine procedure, but it depends on the body’ s situation sometimes. The angle of sawing skull may be different from the last case for the further examination of nasal cavity. Then the scalpels move downward to the thoracic cavity(胸腔). The breastbones are cut to show inward chest and expose the organs. Coroners eviscerate and weight, slice viscera for reservation. Abdomen and pelvis(骨盆腔)should do the same. No matter what step is going now, coroners have to take sample of everything, fluid in each cavity, blood, and even remained food in stomach is included. Also, they record everything simultaneously in either vocal or verbal way. Finishing the autopsy, coroners present a complete report to the police. All information about this corpse is contained. With coroner’s help, the police grasp the general picture of this murder and have an idea who may be the suspect.
Time of death(TOD) and cause of death(COD) are two tough tasks for coroners. As long as the coroner’s words incongruent with the suspect’s, he or she may not the one we are searching for. Several methods are beneficial for coroner when these two essential questions are being asked. As far as the TOD is concerned, coroners can reason it by observing rottenness of body, which can be roughly divided into several stages. Nevertheless, outer environment still influent coroner’s accuracy easily, so rectal thermometer(直腸溫度計), or testing potassium(鉀) in vitreous humor(眼球玻璃體) are latest methods for reducing errors. The other challenging one, COD, is equally complicated. Coroners have to tell murder weapon and how it causes the wounds. Knife wound and gunshot are most common. In order to confirm the gun’s type, coroners may have to cooperate with ballistics experts.
Though coroners are powerful in investigation, in Taiwan, we have only few of them and low rate of autopsy. Why? A coroner’s social status, working environment and payment is worse than a normal doctor. A doctor salaried three hundred thousand dollars a month if he cure live people but only salaried eighty thousand if he cut the bodies open. Besides, being a professional coroner takes lengthy time. Only those who own strong determination succeed. Review the major cases in Taiwan, a professional coroner’s reporter can settle down controversy easily. In case of Jian-he Su, it is reported that two victims were died of knife wound, but the murder weapon is unknown and neither do the type of wounds. Lack of key details makes three defendants prove their innocent hardly. Crime series give us a glimpse of the importance and capability of coroners. We are in a hope of seeing more dead’s injustice exposed and more revealing truth spoke by a benevolent and professional coroner.
A professional coroner should be a forensic pathologist at the same time. They are the first ones arrive at the crime scene. In order to ensure the purity of evidence, their priority is to block the crime scene and then examine the body initially. When it is done, they pack the corpse and bring it to autopsy room for more information. Identification is the first challenge for coroner. Not all the bodies carry their cards when they died. A corpse’s face is unrecognizable usually result of rottenness or deliberately destruction. Suppose AFIS(Automated Fingerprint Identification System finds no match data, then coroner has to ask for experts’ help- a forensic dentist, an anthropologist is able to distinguish the dead’s race, sex, age, and figure by the bodies’ skeleton . It will be helpful if a forensic sculptor use computers to reconstruct the dead’s head and appearance according to the skull.
During the autopsy, coroners start with head in routine procedure, but it depends on the body’ s situation sometimes. The angle of sawing skull may be different from the last case for the further examination of nasal cavity. Then the scalpels move downward to the thoracic cavity(胸腔). The breastbones are cut to show inward chest and expose the organs. Coroners eviscerate and weight, slice viscera for reservation. Abdomen and pelvis(骨盆腔)should do the same. No matter what step is going now, coroners have to take sample of everything, fluid in each cavity, blood, and even remained food in stomach is included. Also, they record everything simultaneously in either vocal or verbal way. Finishing the autopsy, coroners present a complete report to the police. All information about this corpse is contained. With coroner’s help, the police grasp the general picture of this murder and have an idea who may be the suspect.
Time of death(TOD) and cause of death(COD) are two tough tasks for coroners. As long as the coroner’s words incongruent with the suspect’s, he or she may not the one we are searching for. Several methods are beneficial for coroner when these two essential questions are being asked. As far as the TOD is concerned, coroners can reason it by observing rottenness of body, which can be roughly divided into several stages. Nevertheless, outer environment still influent coroner’s accuracy easily, so rectal thermometer(直腸溫度計), or testing potassium(鉀) in vitreous humor(眼球玻璃體) are latest methods for reducing errors. The other challenging one, COD, is equally complicated. Coroners have to tell murder weapon and how it causes the wounds. Knife wound and gunshot are most common. In order to confirm the gun’s type, coroners may have to cooperate with ballistics experts.
Though coroners are powerful in investigation, in Taiwan, we have only few of them and low rate of autopsy. Why? A coroner’s social status, working environment and payment is worse than a normal doctor. A doctor salaried three hundred thousand dollars a month if he cure live people but only salaried eighty thousand if he cut the bodies open. Besides, being a professional coroner takes lengthy time. Only those who own strong determination succeed. Review the major cases in Taiwan, a professional coroner’s reporter can settle down controversy easily. In case of Jian-he Su, it is reported that two victims were died of knife wound, but the murder weapon is unknown and neither do the type of wounds. Lack of key details makes three defendants prove their innocent hardly. Crime series give us a glimpse of the importance and capability of coroners. We are in a hope of seeing more dead’s injustice exposed and more revealing truth spoke by a benevolent and professional coroner.
According to your annotation, the coroner seems to be a doctor and a policeman at the same time. In pursuing an investigation, are the detectives in charge or are the coroners in charge? It seems to me that in your article, the coroner not only provides the evidence, but also participates in chasing the murderer. However, you also mentioned that it takes a long period of time for the coroner to take samples and perform an autopsy on the corpse, so how will the coroner be able to go after the murderer in the field? Coroners are important in investigating a crime, but they can’t do all the work themselves.
回覆刪除I notice that in the last paragraph you mention your own opinion and connect the phenomenon to Taiwan's recent situation. I think it's well. Also I have a question, that is, in other countries(especially in Europe or USA), do coroners have bad treatments as in Taiwan? Do foreign coroners have higher wages or higher status?
回覆刪除I find out that you connect your topic with event which happened in Taiwan. I think it's good to make connection with local things. Maybe you can talk "corner" more clearly and make more clear description about it.
回覆刪除In the process of investigation, coroner plays in an important role. I'm wondering that do the coroners in Taiwan also trained professionally as countries such as America? Because that you mention the cases in Taiwan in the last part of the article. Also, you have talked about the "regretful fact" happens in those cases. I think you can write some details in that part.
回覆刪除1. Feedback on structure.
回覆刪除I suggest shortening paragraph two to four to no more than one paragraph since the length of this annotation was supposed to be about 500 words. A paragraph will do a good job giving a brief summary what is mentioned in the source. In addition, adding one paragraph which summarizes the essential parts why you chose this to annotate will be helpful while you write the research paper.
2. Citation format
Frederick Zugibe, MD., Ph.D.,(2007),Dissecting Death, 商周出版：家庭傳媒城邦
It should be a period after the parenthesis enclosing the year, not a comma. It’s the same for the comma after the title. You may consult APA manual or google for details.