Death of the teaching autopsy: In Hong Kong teaching autopsies have been championed in public mortuaries

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7432.166

BMJ 2004;328:166 (17 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7432.166

Letter

Death of the teaching autopsy

In Hong Kong teaching autopsies have been championed in public mortuaries

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—O'Grady's comments on the teaching autopsy resonatefor many of us.¹ We in Hong Kong have also experienced the gradualgeneral decrease in the number of hospital autopsies such thatthis major teaching hospital sees only 20-30 cases a year. Thiscoupled with the switch to a problem based learning medicalcurriculum in 1997 brought autopsy teaching to the verge ofextinction.

We have, however, preserved autopsy teaching for medical studentswith the help of colleagues in the public mortuaries, whereover 4000 coroners' autopsies are performed each year. Duringthe second year rotations, medical students in groups of 8-10observe a detailed autopsy of a case or in some instances snapshotsof many cases. They are required to write about their expectationsof such a session and to reflect on their experience afterwards.

We have also redesigned our teaching clinicopathological conferences.Students are allocated a case and . . . [Full text of this article]

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Philip S L Beh, clinical assistant professor (forensic pathology)

Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong philipbeh@pathology.hku.hk