Forensic Pathology: Natural disease as cause of motor vehicle incidents

The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM) is Australia’s largest multi-disciplinary centre for forensic medical and scientific services. Their forensic pathology department is one of the largest in the world, performing approx. 7000 post-mortem examinations per year, covering a wide variety of natural and unnatural deaths. Deaths related to motor vehicle incidents make up a substantial portion of the annual case load. In such deaths, it is essential to determine whether the traffic incident was due to natural disease (such as a sudden cardiac event) or due to other factors. Since the medico-legal death investigation system in Victoria is one of the most comprehensive in the world, the VIFM is well placed to advance our knowledge on this essential issue. This project aims to identify and document the characteristics and circumstances of all traffic related deaths, in which fatal natural disease was deemed to be the cause. This data will be sourced from the case files of the VIFM and compared with a matched cohort of traffic incidents without evidence of a natural cause. Ultimately, we aim to provide an overview of the fatal natural diseases that cause traffic incidents, and which circumstantial information may indicate such a natural cause. This will assist in the examination of traffic-related death nationally and internationally. This research study is a retrospective analysis of traffic-related deaths. Skills in descriptive retrospective studies will be developed as well as in interpretation of a wide variety of medical sources, such as post-mortem imaging, autopsy reports and toxicology results. The student will furthermore gain an overall insight in the medical specialty of forensic pathology.