Unnatural Causes

The Unnatural Causes by Dr Richard Shepherd is such an intriguing book. Dr Shepherd is a forensic pathologist, and he estimates that during his long career (35 years), he conducted 23,00 post-mortem examinations, from mass killings like the 7/7 terror attacks in London in 2005 to some of the most disturbing tragedies that occurred in the past few decades, like the investigation of the murders of Harold Shipman and the death of Stephen Lawrence, the 18-year-old who was stabbed to death at a bus stop in one of the most notorious racially motivated attacks in south London, in 1993.

In this memoir Dr Richard Shepherd describes the complicated cased he worked on and hard training and life-long commitment required by a forensic pathologist. Forensic pathology practice requires up-to-date knowledge of medical practice, the forensic sciences and sound knowledge in anatomical pathology. Forensic pathologists have a critical role in death investigation, they don’t just examine the body of the deceased to define the cause of death, but also the factors contributing to death and assist in the reconstruction of the circumstances in which the death occurred. It requires knowledge of relevant areas of the law as a forensic scientist help lawyers, judges, and juries in delivering justice by providing results as well as knowledge of the ethical issues of forensic medical practice. In a way, a forensic pathologist can be seen as an effective advocate on behalf of the deceased.

As a doctor, Richard Shepherd, sought truth through facts. “Truth,” he says, “is based upon knowledge. So, of course, it can be compromised by incomplete knowledge.” As a pathologist he was learning that truth could be directly affected by the choices he made, by how many facts he chose to study. It was the first step in what was to become for him, a lifelong examination of the nature of truth. But truth is not always simple and singular. Truth can be different things when viewed from different viewpoints. Truth is not so easy to apply in practicality. “Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” you swear when you appear in court. But the whole truth includes all the possible alternatives for a given situation as Dr Richard Shepherd states in his book. How should a forensic pathologist respond to a question asked by the prosecutor when truth includes all possible, probable, reasonably probable or only the most probable alternatives. I found the cases that included court testimonies very intriguing.

Together with the social and political implications of some of these cases, Dr Richard Shepherd describes the impact that his work brought to his personal and family life and although I would prefer less information about his family life, I found his description about his PTSD very interesting. Mental health is a serious problem and although stigma has eased considerably in the past few decades, acceptance is still farther that it should be. Mental health problems do not discriminate with regards to situation or status. Talking openly and honestly about the challenges of mental health, as Dr Shepherd does in this book, makes a lot of difference.