GlossaryAgencies and service responsibility
Medical examiner
A medical examiner is an official, typically a physician, responsible for investigating specified deaths and making findings under the jurisdiction's death-investigation system.
A medical examiner is an official, typically a physician, responsible for investigating specified deaths and making findings under the jurisdiction's death-investigation system. The work can include determining cause and manner of death. An office referral or preliminary entry is different from the examiner's final findings and should be described accordingly.
What the findings describe
New York City's medical examiner explains that cause and manner can remain pending while further studies are completed. Cause describes the disease or injury responsible for death; manner describes the classification of circumstances under the applicable system.
A public record can therefore be accurate while incomplete. A pending finding does not establish that the death is criminal, unexplained permanently, or incorrectly recorded. It identifies work that has not yet produced a final determination.
Example
Hypothetical example: A death certificate initially lists cause and manner as pending. After laboratory results and other information are reviewed, the responsible office issues an amended finding.
The two entries describe successive stages of one investigation. They should not be counted as two deaths or presented as contradictory conclusions without considering the pending status. The final finding should retain its actual issue date.
Common confusion
A coroner and a medical examiner can have related duties under different organizational and qualification rules. The titles are not interchangeable in every jurisdiction.
An autopsy is an examination that can inform the findings. Not every office referral establishes that an autopsy occurred, and an autopsy report is not a court conviction.
Source and jurisdiction
CDC describes several local death-investigation structures. Check the responsible office's legal scope, case status, and amendment practices. A police call label or early news release should not be substituted for the medical examiner's completed record when stating a cause of death.