Martínez-Hernández A
Rev Med Chil. 2000 May;128(5):457-9.
In the Western world the autopsy rate is declining at an alarming rate. In the United States of America the rate in some academic hospitals is less than 7% of all hospital deaths. This decline has been documented and deplored in many countries, articles and books. Suggestions on how to resuscitate the autopsy range from mandatory in all hospital deaths to economic bonuses to the doctors obtaining the highest autopsy rate. All in vain, the autopsy decline continues. Pathologists deploring this decline blamed clinical colleagues, new social attitudes, the litigious nature of modern society, but few have questioned a procedure little changed in more than a century. Perhaps the time has come to abandon the "classic" autopsy and rethink the procedure so as to make it useful, alluring and indispensable for the contemporary, concerned clinician.
在西方世界，尸检率正以惊人的速度下降。在美国，一些学术医院的尸检率不到所有医院死亡病例的7%。许多国家的文章和书籍都记录并哀叹这种下降。关于如何恢复尸检的建议层出不穷，从对所有医院死亡病例强制进行尸检，到给尸检率最高的医生发放经济奖励。但一切都徒劳无功，尸检率仍在持续下降。对这种下降感到遗憾的病理学家将责任归咎于临床同事、新的社会态度、现代社会的诉讼性质，但很少有人质疑一个在一个多世纪里几乎没有改变的程序。也许是时候摒弃“经典”尸检，重新思考这个程序，使其对当代关心此事的临床医生有用、有吸引力且不可或缺了。
