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British Medical Journal logoLink to British Medical Journal
. 1975 May 10;2(5966):326–328. doi: 10.1136/bmj.2.5966.326

Necropsy rates in the United Birmingham Hospitals.

H A Waldron, L Vickerstaff
PMCID: PMC1681898  PMID: 1131528

Abstract

The necropsy rate in the United Birmingham Hospital has fallen from 74-4% in 1958 to 46-0% in 1972. In the Birmingham region as a whole the rate is 27-3%, approximately equal to the national rate. Most clinicians in the group who replied to a standard questionary considered that the necropsy still has an important part to play in their own practice and in undergraduate training, and they viewed the declining rate as a matter for concern. Some measure of disagreement was found between the ante-mortem and post-mortem diagnoses of patients in the two largest hospitals in the group. This suggests that the necropsy has a role to play in medical audit and that attempts to reverse the declining trend should be encouraged.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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