IAFR Webinar #5 – The Role of the Radiological Technologist for post mortem imaging examinations in Japan

Dr. Tomoya Kobayashi, Chief, Department of Radiological Technology at Tsukuba Medical Center Hospital; Member of Postmortem Imaging Committee, Japan Association of Radiological Technologists; Director of the Japan Society of Autopsy imaging.

The number of postmortem imaging (PMI) examinations has been rapidly increasing in Japan. Reasons include the extremely low rate of only 1% for conventional autopsies, and number of installed CT and MRI units in Japan is the largest in the world. Social awareness has also grown to the use of PMI, and is called “Autopsy imaging” after the word was used in popular mass media dramatic productions and publications.  PMI in Japan is often utilized for screening death causes in particular situations, including for bodies arriving in emergency rooms in a state of cardiopulmonary arrest, deaths occurring during hospitalization, official police inquests into abnormal deaths, and to serve as a guide to subsequent conventional autopsy.  As a result, laws have recently been revised to facilitate death-cause detection in Japan, and PMI has become widely-accepted as an important role of general hospitals.

Dr. Kobayashi will discuss discuss the current roles of radiological technologists in the processes of performing PMI with accuracy and precision, the organization of PMI examination systems in hospitals, and the education programs covering PMI procedures and ethics, all in light of the radically changing social/medical environments and legal systems regarding PMI in Japan.