Hospital Wanderer

If you are a parent and your child suddenly died of an accident, what would you feel? Of course you will be very lonely, right? But what will you do if your child died and two months after his funeral you received news from a friend of your late child saying that she had seen the brain of your child displayed in a morgue? Whoa! Horrified? Angry? Shocked?

The case of Jesse Shipley had attracted attention on the web lately. He was 17 years old and was a student of Staten Island, New York. He died in a car accident last January 2005. He was autopsied and his body was brought back to his parents, which is a misconception since one of his classmates in the said school that he attended saw his brain on a cabinet in the medical examiner's lab. Thus, there are still remains of his body that were not yet given to his parents. And his parents were shocked for they had thought that the body of their child was complete when it was brought back to them. After all who will be the parents that will be happy after finding out that part of their child’s body was taken without their permission?

The College of American Pathologists provides a sample autopsy consent form on its website. According to the form, the consenter authorizes "the removal, examination, and retention of organs....as the pathologists deem proper for diagnostic, education, quality improvement and research purposes." However, the form also states that "organs and tissues not needed for diagnostic, education, quality improvement, or research purposes will be sent to the funeral home or disposed of appropriately."

Is it really proper to take the brain of the young Shipley? Was his brain sent to the funeral? Or to his parents?

In a statement to CNN, the attorney representing the city wrote that although officials sympathize with the family, "it was within the Medical Examiner's discretion to perform an autopsy, and in appropriate cases, to remove and retain bodily organs for further testing."

Jesse Shipley died in an accident. What further testing and study was needed to know the cause of his death?

"To say someone died of a motor vehicle accident, doesn't really tell us anything," Dr. Victor Weedn, a forensic pathologist and a spokesperson for the National Association of Medical Examiners explains. "For example, if a passenger in the backseat was epileptic, their fit could have distracted the driver and led to the death. So, from the outside it may not be so obvious why the person actually died."

Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, a forensic pathologist and attorney who reviews cases like these but is not involved in the Shipley case, says the medical examiner was right to take out the brain for investigation but was wrong to openly display Shipley's name on it."You're talking about a matter of sensitivity and common sense," Wecht says. "Certainly if you're going to have student visitors, then you should not have names and numbers available to see."

Did the family of Jesse Shipley has right to sue the medical examiner who without their permission get the brain of their child?

Ethically speaking these medical examiners in medical scrubs and cargo pants for men or women have the right but did they do everything with due process of law? Did the medical examiners consider what will the family of the deceased will gonna feel? Certainly they weren't aware that "whenever the parent's remember their child, part of their memory is holding a jar of organs in their hands that they never should have known existed."