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The dignity of the human corpse in forensic medicine

Working with the dead is a very specific kind of work. Although a dignified handling of the corpses is demanded by the legislator and by the general public, neither the legal status of the corpse is undisputed nor is it obvious what a dignified handling of the deceased should consist of. In our hypo...

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Autores principales: Schwarz, Clara-Sophie, Münch, Nikolai, Müller-Salo, Johannes, Kramer, Stefan, Walz, Cleo, Germerott, Tanja
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8354905/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33709210
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02534-x
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author Schwarz, Clara-Sophie
Münch, Nikolai
Müller-Salo, Johannes
Kramer, Stefan
Walz, Cleo
Germerott, Tanja
author_facet Schwarz, Clara-Sophie
Münch, Nikolai
Müller-Salo, Johannes
Kramer, Stefan
Walz, Cleo
Germerott, Tanja
author_sort Schwarz, Clara-Sophie
collection PubMed
description Working with the dead is a very specific kind of work. Although a dignified handling of the corpses is demanded by the legislator and by the general public, neither the legal status of the corpse is undisputed nor is it obvious what a dignified handling of the deceased should consist of. In our hypothesis generating pilot study, we asked which concrete considerations are involved in daily practice of forensic specialists. We used an online questionnaire (invitations via e-mail) consisting of questions with single choice, multiple choice, and free text entries. The answers to single or multiple choice questions were displayed in pivot tables. The data was thus summarized, viewed, descriptively analyzed, and displayed together with the free text answers. 84.54% of the physicians and 100% of the autopsy assistants stated that considerations concerning the dignity of the deceased should play a role in daily autopsy practice. 45.87% stated that the conditions surrounding the autopsy need improvement to be ethically suitable. The analysis of the survey’s results was based on Robert Audi’s ethics, according to which three aspects need to be lightened in order to evaluate the conduct of a person morally: the actions, the motivation, and the way in which the actions are carried out. This systematization helps to identify the need for improvement and to make the vague demands for a dignified handling of corpses more concrete.
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spelling pubmed-83549052021-08-25 The dignity of the human corpse in forensic medicine Schwarz, Clara-Sophie Münch, Nikolai Müller-Salo, Johannes Kramer, Stefan Walz, Cleo Germerott, Tanja Int J Legal Med Original Article Working with the dead is a very specific kind of work. Although a dignified handling of the corpses is demanded by the legislator and by the general public, neither the legal status of the corpse is undisputed nor is it obvious what a dignified handling of the deceased should consist of. In our hypothesis generating pilot study, we asked which concrete considerations are involved in daily practice of forensic specialists. We used an online questionnaire (invitations via e-mail) consisting of questions with single choice, multiple choice, and free text entries. The answers to single or multiple choice questions were displayed in pivot tables. The data was thus summarized, viewed, descriptively analyzed, and displayed together with the free text answers. 84.54% of the physicians and 100% of the autopsy assistants stated that considerations concerning the dignity of the deceased should play a role in daily autopsy practice. 45.87% stated that the conditions surrounding the autopsy need improvement to be ethically suitable. The analysis of the survey’s results was based on Robert Audi’s ethics, according to which three aspects need to be lightened in order to evaluate the conduct of a person morally: the actions, the motivation, and the way in which the actions are carried out. This systematization helps to identify the need for improvement and to make the vague demands for a dignified handling of corpses more concrete. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-03-11 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8354905/ /pubmed/33709210 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02534-x Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Article
Schwarz, Clara-Sophie
Münch, Nikolai
Müller-Salo, Johannes
Kramer, Stefan
Walz, Cleo
Germerott, Tanja
The dignity of the human corpse in forensic medicine
title The dignity of the human corpse in forensic medicine
title_full The dignity of the human corpse in forensic medicine
title_fullStr The dignity of the human corpse in forensic medicine
title_full_unstemmed The dignity of the human corpse in forensic medicine
title_short The dignity of the human corpse in forensic medicine
title_sort dignity of the human corpse in forensic medicine
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8354905/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33709210
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02534-x
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