Autopsy and its Declining Rate in the United States

Running head: HEALTHCARE 1
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HEALTHCARE
Part 1
An autopsy, also known as a post-mortem examination, is the examination of the body after
death to determine the cause of the demise. It can confirm an existing diagnosis or provide a
diagnosis if it was not determined before death. An autopsy provides insight into disease
pathogenesis and creates educational opportunities for medical students and physicians. The
declining rate of autopsies performed in the United State hospital has reduced the early detection
of new diseases and infections.
Autopsy rate in the United State has declined intensely since 1975 from 19.3% to less than five
percent in 2016, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. Autopsy rate is
largely influenced by factors such as sudden and unexplained deaths, age, hospital accreditation
standard, state laws, and families of the decedents. Even though most of the deaths are due to
illness or medical disorder, these cases are less likely to be autopsied than those due to external
causes. Autopsy rate also declines with age because older people are likely to die of the disease
than external causes ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019).
According to a survey conducted by pathology and medicine resident’s physicians, reasons
families refuse autopsies include; the family might not understand the importance of autopsy,
also the belief that the patient has suffered enough and an autopsy would not be useful and it will
only disfigure the body (Buja, Barth, Krueger, Brodsky, & Hunter, 2019). Many doctors conflict
themselves about the risk and benefits of autopsies, If an autopsy indicates that the doctors
missed a vital diagnosis, this would upsurge the probability of medical malpractices criticisms.
Doctors also believe that the accurateness of current diagnostic testing is so prodigious it renders
autopsy diagnosis principally superfluous. Fatal diagnostic errors have declined but it is
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