Polices....

I had this bad encounter again with the police...

there was this Death on arrival patient - the family had found him in prone position and there was this small stool(the wood one and no the shit one...) under his jaw.[his neck was hyperextended of coz..]. the neck was stiff and he was sent to our ED for resus. Although rigor mortis was noted, I intubated him without difficulty - the neck was in hyperextension posture and the vocal cord can be seen easily...I did the resus as routine. The arterial(or maybe the venous) blood gas was acidotic (pH 6.7) with pCO2 of 110+...well, I break the news to the family after 20 mins of effort. It should be 30mins ... but since no law nor regulation had officially written down it should be 30mins and the ED was flooded with trauma - I  had 4 trauma patient pending their xray being review...so I call it after 20 mins.
The police came later and took some photo. When the polices were about to leave, one of the police asked me for a medical record summary....an unusual request - for DOA patient, we usualy issued a medical certificate (standard format which state the diagnosis and some description about the condition/management.) in 3 copies. The DOA patient would be sent to the local morturay(private of coz) and iced...The prosecutor would inspect the corpse with the coroner and signed the death certificate. Both the coroner and prosecutor would go down to relevant medical institution to look at the medical records if in doubt. If murder is suspected, an official warrant would be issued and proper copies should be forwarded to the prosecutor officer for further examination. I had never issued any medical summary for such purposes. I told the police politely that the admin office was closed and such summary could be processed in the morning. He then "told" the family to come to us the next day for such document. I had never encounter such request in the past - My conclusion - the police wants to closed the case fast ! - the patient was an amphetamine abuser and he had history of other drug abuse, but he had this handicaped certificate. A fall in the house due to his handicaped condition could made it look like a trauma incident and save the time for proper autopsy.

I don't think it was proper to comply to the police - unlike the Malaysia system , the police would decides if the vicitm need any autopsy; In Taiwan ,the prosecutor would decide - and the decision sometimes would be decide by the family attitude....If none of the family had any doubt the victim was being murdered, sometimes the prosecutor would close the case...

Anyway, the medical summary was issued the next day by one of our doctor...