Forensic pathology and the autopsy.

Questionnaires sent to representative medicolegal jurisdictions in the United States showed that medicolegal necropsies comprise a substantial proportion of the total number of autopsies performed. Qualitative differences between customary hospital autopsies and their forensic counterparts include autopsy bias, the importance of trauma, biological variability, and medicolegal logic. Because of these differences, medicolegal autopsies have an important role to play in the education of undergraduate and graduate medical students and should be incorporated into the training programs of academic departments of pathology.