This educational tool presents a collection of study guides for the New Mexico Decedent Image Database feature anthropology cases; cases devoted to decomposition or post-mortem change at different stages and medical examiner cases representing a variety of case types, and includes a wide variety of findings.
This collection of study guides for the New Mexico Decedent Image Database (NMDID) are geared toward forensic pathologists, radiologists, anthropologists, and other forensic practitioners who are interested in learning more about the use of postmortem computer tomography (PMCT) in death investigation and anthropological analysis. The goal is to provide a starting point for learning about the way PMCT may be used for various case types and the PMCT appearance of some common as well as unusual findings. The document includes four Case Study Guides that feature anthropology cases, four that are devoted to the topic of decomposition or post-mortem change at different stages, and 30 that consist of medical examiner cases representing a variety of case types, including homicide, suicide, accident, drug-related, and natural; they represent a wide variety of findings that are commonly encountered in the medical examiner setting, as well as some unusual findings. The Case Study Guides can be most beneficial when paired with access to the NMDID to view the full image data and associated metadata, which will allow users to get a better idea of the PMCT appearance of the findings featured in the guides, as well as view other findings which are mentioned but not discussed or illustrated in the guides.