Critical incident stress management and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner: preliminary inquiry

Abstract

In critical incidents that involve loss of life, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (ME) is an integral part of the response team. It is the ME who determines the cause of death, explains the circumstances to family survivors, and releases the remains in a timely fashion. In the conduct of the ME's work, addressing the psychological needs of acutely grieving family survivors is important (Kaplan & Sadock, 1998). The importance of this support is becoming increasingly apparent both in supporting surviving family members and for ME staff in assisting families of deceased persons (Coburn, Borges, Knake, & Harper, 2000). Additionally, the work of the medical examiner is often highly stressful to the ME staff as well (Murphy, 2000). The ME staff is continuously exposed to stressful incidents and must interact with traumatized family members. This paper outlines a unique Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) programmatic effort between Boston University School of Medicine's Center for Multicultural Mental Health and the office of the ME in Massachusetts to enhance the skills cf ME staff in working with family survivors of victims of sudden deaths (i.e., sudden accidents or suspicious deaths) and to address the emotional needs of ME staff themselves. Preliminary anecdotal findings and directions for future experimental inquiry are presented.