Forensics
The Forensic Team
The specialists on a forensic team, from the medical examiner to the toxicologist and serologist, and how their findings fit together.
Forensic investigation uses science to examine evidence and solve crimes. Members of the forensic team use different scientific disciplines to develop different kinds of evidence to present in court. Determining who committed a crime is a team effort between investigators and scientists. Together, they work to reveal the whole story of the crime: who committed it, how they did it, when, where, and why.
Pathologist
Pathology is a branch of medicine that determines the nature and course of a disease by analyzing body tissues and fluids. Anatomic pathologists perform autopsies and analyze tissue material taken from patients. Clinical pathologists diagnose disease by measuring chemicals and cells in blood, bone marrow, urine, and other bodily materials. The medical examiner is usually the first forensic specialist to investigate a crime. The ME decides on the need for an autopsy, and investigates all deaths from violence, accidents, suicides, or suspicious circumstances. The medical examiner is a pathologist.
Pharmacologist
Pharmacology is a branch of science that studies the interaction of chemical substances and living tissues. The pharmacologist studies how chemicals are absorbed by the body, how they affect the body, where they act within the body, and how they are metabolized and excreted.
Toxicologist
Toxicology is the science of poisons, how they act on the living body, and how they are detected postmortem. The toxicologist often works with the pharmacologist to find and examine poisonous substances or drugs in bodily fluids and tissues. The toxicologist is also a chemist, and the two disciplines often work together on the forensics team as the Chemistry/Toxicology Unit, or Chem/Tox.
Serologist
Serology is the study of bodily fluids in humans and animals. In the 1970s, scientists identified elements in blood and body secretions that allowed them to match a sample found at a crime scene to a small number of people. Later, scientists developed a way to extract DNA from human cells and link it to a specific person.
Psychiatrist / Psychologist
A forensic psychiatrist or psychologist compiles information about a case into a description of a possible suspect. This psychological profile, or offender profile, predicts the suspect's background, family, education, and motivation for committing the crime.
How the team works together
The specialists on a forensic team rarely work side by side. On a suspicious death the medical examiner or coroner sets the scope of the investigation, examines the body, and orders toxicology or other laboratory tests, so the lab work is driven by what the examination raises.[2] The medical examiner then reads the autopsy findings together with results from the crime scene and the laboratory to reach a conclusion about cause and manner of death.[3] Each person answers one narrow question, and the case comes together only when those separate answers are lined up. If you are weighing this line of work, our careers page covers the training paths into each role.
Common questions
What does a medical examiner do?
A medical examiner is a physician, usually a forensic pathologist, who examines a body to determine the cause and manner of death. They decide whether an autopsy is needed and order toxicology and other laboratory tests, then combine those results with what the death scene shows.
What is the difference between a coroner and a medical examiner?
A medical examiner is an appointed physician, typically board-certified in forensic pathology. A coroner is an elected or appointed official who usually serves a single county and, in many states, is not required to be a physician or have medical training. Coroners often rely on a pathologist to perform autopsies.
What is a forensic serologist?
A forensic serologist detects, identifies, and types body fluids such as blood, semen, and saliva found at a crime scene or on evidence. The work can link a stain to a person and often leads into DNA analysis.
How do the specialists on a forensic team work together?
Each specialist examines one type of evidence: the body, blood and fluids, toxicology, or a person's mental state. They report their findings to the medical examiner or lead investigator, who reads them alongside the crime scene results. The case is reconstructed by lining up those separate findings, not by any one person alone.
Do you need to be a doctor to work on a forensic team?
Not for every role. The medical examiner is a physician, and forensic psychiatrists hold a medical degree, but many laboratory specialists such as toxicologists and serologists work from science degrees rather than a medical one. In many states a coroner is an elected official who is not required to have medical training at all.
Sources
- National Institute of Justice, Forensic Pathology, Forensic Sciences topic page
- Institute of Medicine, Overview of the Medicolegal Death Investigation System in the United States, in Medicolegal Death Investigation System: Workshop Summary (National Academies Press, 2003)
- Institute of Medicine, Comparing Medical Examiner and Coroner Systems, in Medicolegal Death Investigation System: Workshop Summary (National Academies Press, 2003)
- National Institute of Justice, Testing of Body Fluids and Tissues, Laboratory Orientation and Testing of Body Fluids and Tissues for Forensic Analysts (NIJ-hosted online training)