
What’s wrong with me? Whenever
you become ill, you can go to your
doctor and by examining you and
performing various tests, your
doctor comes up with a diagnosis of
what he feels is wrong with you and
so he will know how to treat you and
make you better. Careers that
perform the tests that diagnose you
are called Diagnostic Services.
Tests
such as blood, urinalysis,
cultures, imaging, biopsies,
home medical kits, genetic
testing, and the newest, latest
are noninvasive breath tests that
can check for many diseases
such as lung, throat, and breast
cancer, MS and TB.
 Nuclear
Medicine Technologist- operate
advanced imaging machines (CT, MRI, PET)
scans.
 Pathologists- medical doctors who specialize
in the diagnosis and study of diseases and
disease processes.
 Medical Lab Technologists and Technicianswork in lab settings performing lab tests,
maintain and calibrate lab instruments.
 Phlebotomist- draw blood specimens.
Postmortem
exam to find
how and why the victim died.
Two types- Forensic and
Clinical
May be done by a
Pathologist, Medial Examiner
or Coroner
Place body in a clean body bag and place
victim’s hands in a bag to preserve evidence.
 Notes, photos and X-rays are taken of any
marks, wounds, evidence found.
 External examination, body weighed and
measured.
 Blood, oral fluid and tissue samples may be
taken for toxicology analysis.
 Internal examination-incision cutting open the
chest to reveal organs which are examined,
weighed and measured for abnormalities.
Tissue samples may be taken. If the brain
must be examined, it is removed and put in
formulin for later examination.

 Rigor
Mortis- muscles become stiff after
death, starts in 3 hours, whole body affected
after 12 hours. Around 36 hours, becomes
soft and supple again.
 Lividity- red blood cells break down after
death and skin appears reddish in color on
ground-side where patient was lying when
they died.
 Entomology- study of insects. Can play a role
in time of death.
 Stomach contents- the process of digestion
can help determine time of death.
Costs
Religion
Personal
reasons- might
reveal something family
doesn’t want to know,
medical error, etc.
 We
all have it! A set of instructions
encoded in long molecules of
deoxyribonucleic acid,(DNA).
 Four chemicals that make up DNA are
Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine and
Guanine.
 A always pairs with T, C always pairs
with G.
 Human DNA is arranged in 23 pairs of
chromosomes.
Human
DNA is more than 95%
similar to chimpanzee DNA.
Your DNA is 50% identical to your
mother’s DNA and 50% identical
to your father’s DNA.
Unless you have an identical
twin, nobody has DNA just like
yours.
If you have samples of body tissues such as
blood, semen, saliva, skin, or hair you can test it
to see if it’s DNA matches that of a particular
person!
 In the US, The FBI maintains a database of DNA
profiles for convicted criminals, some arrestees,
missing persons and unidentified remains.
 DNA is also used to establish paternity,
inheritance, immigration and other legal cases.
 Genetic testing can help with establishing your
or your children’s chances of getting an inherited
disease.

 Karotyping-
a technique for looking at an
organism’s set of chromosomes.Some genetic
disorders are caused by extra, missing, or
rearranged chromosomes or pieces of
chromosomes.
 Polymerase Chain Reaction- used to make
enough copies of DNA segments to the DNA
can be sequenced, profiled, or tested for a
particular genetic disorder.
Gel
Electrophoresis- a technique for
separating molecules by length and
charge, including DNA, RNA, and
proteins.
Microarrays- Microarrays can detect
the presence and activity of
thousands of genes at the same
time.
 Forensic
Science is the application of
science and technology to establish facts in
legal cases.
 There are many different fields and
specialties of forensic science.
 Medical Examiner- a medical doctor or
forensic pathologist in charge of death
investigations. He is usually appointed by the
state to investigate any suspicious or unusual
deaths in which there could be foul play.
They must determine cause of death!
 Forensic
Toxicology- the investigation of
drugs and poisons in the body in cases of
illegal drug use, drug abuse, poisoning and
death. Body fluids and tissue samples are
taken and analyzed for drugs and alcohol.
 Forensic Pathology- medical doctors who
specialize first, in pathology and second, in
forensic pathology.
 Forensic Anthropology- application of
physical anthropology archeological
techniques to recover, identify and
investigate skeletal remains.
 Forensic
Odontology- application of dental
science to forensic cases.
 Wildlife Forensic Science- applies forensic
techniques to cases of nonhuman biological
evidence.
Medical
tests, both
diagnostic and forensic, are
usually very accurate, but as
with any test, there is also
room for error!
False positive- when a test shows something
that isn’t there.
 True positive- when a test shows positive for a
disease that is there.
 False negative- when a test fails to detect a
condition that the patient really has.
 True negative- when a test shows negative for a
disease that the patient realy doesn’t have.
 Sensitivity- the measure of how often a test will
detect a condition when the condition is
present.
 Specificity-the measure of how often a test will
give negative results for a condition when the
condition is not present.

 High
Prevalence and Low Prevalence- See
example scenarios in BMT curriculum!