Autopsy

The Autopsy specialty within the Department of Pathology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is led by director Elisheva Shanes, MD. Autopsy includes autopsy-dedicated pathologists who are highly skilled at correlating clinical disease with the physical and microscopic findings discovered at autopsy. We have expertise in perinatal/fetal autopsy, adult autopsy and neuropathology, serving as a referral center for numerous hospitals in Illinois that cannot perform autopsies, as well as for the Mesulam Institute for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center.

Education

Teaching is a top priority in the specialty. Pathology residents participate in all adult and fetal autopsies performed at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, our clinical affiliate, and medical students from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine spend one week of their surgical pathology rotation in Autopsy participating in cases. Autopsy faculty teach during autopsies, and the specialty employs two dieners and two autopsy-dedicated pathologists' assistants trained in prosection who can guide trainees in organ dissection. Residents attend didactic lectures on how to perform both fetal and adult autopsies and the different methodologies in practice. In addition, each of our pathologists organizes autopsy gross conferences for residents, focusing on a wide variety of topics, including forensics, cardiac causes of death, congenital malformations and syndromes and fetal post-mortem radiology. The specialty also provides training in evisceration and organ dissection for students in the Pathologists' Assistants Training Program at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

Research

Autopsy faculty are currently collaborating with the Division of Cardiology in the Department of Medicine and the Department of Radiology to explore how to correlate medical imaging with autopsy findings in the emerging field of virtual autopsy. In conjunction with the Division of Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine, the specialty is also tracking changing trends in autopsy requests after educating and involving Internal Medicine residents in post-mortem examination of their deceased patients.

Patient Care

Over 300 autopsies are performed at Northwestern Memorial Hospital annually, and our neuropathologists additionally perform over 100 neuropathologic examinations on forensic cases for the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. Our pathologists participate in Morbidity and Mortality conferences with the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine and present clinical-pathologic correlation autopsy cases to trainees in the Division of Internal Medicine.