| The coroner has been a part of American culture since colonists first transported the position from England. During the nineteenth century, guided by their developing medical ethics and professionalism, American physicians unsuccessfully sought to control coroners, who typically were nonphysicians. By the end of the century, only Massachusetts had created a physician-led medical-examiner office. During the twentieth century, a combination of physicians, lawyers, and citizen groups attempted to replace elected coroners with appointed physician medical examiners. This occurred only after the public became emboldened by local crises. Politicians, jurists, and, surprisingly, physicians frequently challenged the authority of physician medical examiners. The failure of forensic pathologists to control death investigation, located at the intersection of law, medicine, politics, crime, and public health, challenges conventional views about medicalization, professional boundary work, and expert authority.;After World War I, the Rockefeller Foundation became an important advocate for creating physician-led medical examiner offices. It funded the first department of legal medicine, at Harvard University in 1939. Politician reformers, such as Richard Spencer Childs, attempted to remove coroners by formulating a model law for death investigation. Forensic pathology grew out of general pathology as a result of the increasing demands of the criminal justice system. Pathologists created the subspeciality of forensic pathology as they sought to protect their professional position from lawyers and expand their control within medicine. Although forensic pathology initially became visible to the public during investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, pathologists did not gain the level of professional authority through subspecialization they had envisioned. Instead, law-enforcement officials, politicians, and axillary health-care workers successfully challenged their authority. Only in popular media---novels, movies, and television programs---did forensic pathology shine. As part physician and part policemen, they were left unprotected by organized medicine when politicians criticized them for carrying out their professional duties. |
