Sixteen teams of students presented their findings to a judging panel of faculty members and a renowned local expert, Dr. Jan Garavaglia, chief medical examiner for Orange and Osceola counties, and star of聽 Discovery Health鈥檚 鈥淒r. G: Medical Examiner.鈥�

鈥淭ypical medical schools are not going to have you talk about pathophysiology and why the patient died,鈥� she said.聽 鈥淭his is really a novel way to introduce the students to critical thinking and putting the pieces of the puzzle together.鈥�

The 麻豆原创 medical students diagnosed illnesses including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, lung cancer and Cushing鈥檚 disease. They arrived at their conclusions based on visual evidence, biopsies and other tissue samples examined under a microscope. After each presentation, the judges revealed the patient鈥檚 official cause of death and students were graded based on the accuracy of their findings.

At the end of the day, two teams were selected as winners. The first was Group 7, whose members were: Adam Almaguer, Deeva Berera, Davd Cantu, David Griffin, Kirstin LaBell and Jennifer Loftus . The other winning team was Group 5: Christal Crooks, Lauren Furman, Errol Inci, Shannon Moore, Jeffrey Peacock, Matthew Schwenke and Pouya Shoolizadeh.

Each winning team member will take home a cash prize, thanks to a generous donation to the College of Medicine. While there could only be two winning teams, anatomy professor Dr. Andrew Payer applauded all the hard work, analysis and spirit of inquiry that went into the reports.聽 鈥淥ur goal is to make sure students aren鈥檛 just learning for the sake of learning,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ecause they are going to be physicians, we want them to apply this information to the patients they鈥檒l be working with in the future.鈥�

Unlike most medical schools, 麻豆原创 doesn鈥檛 tell first-year students how their cadaver died. Instead, students must play detective during their 17 weeks in a state-of-the-art anatomy lab run by Professor Andrew Payer. During lab, students scrutinize the organ systems, pathologies and even cell samples of their first patient, the remains of people who have willed their bodies to science.

This year, Payer invited the renowned Dr. G to participate in judging the autopsy reports. 鈥淎s medical examiner, Dr. Garavaglia serves our community in everything she does,鈥� said Dr. Deborah German, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the College of Medicine. 鈥淲e are honored she has volunteered to share her expertise with our students.鈥�

After each presentation, Dr. Garavaglia read the patient鈥檚 actual death certificate. In one instance, the students believed their patient had died of ischemic heart failure. 鈥淚n looking at the death certificate, I wish this doctor would have consulted with you,鈥� she said. 鈥淗e just put down everything he knew about the patient 鈥� hypertension, diabetes, cardiac arrhythmia 鈥� and figured one of those must have caused his death.鈥�

Dr. Garavaglia presented the top award to Team 13 鈥� Students Galal Elsayed, Giorgio Guiulfo, Michelle Hidalgo, Rikin Patel, Erin Purdy, Morgan Stines and Megan Vu, who found that their patient, a 55-year-old woman, had died from pneumonia related to lung cancer.

After the awards, Dr. Garavaglia attended a reception and posed for pictures with students and members of the College of Medicine鈥檚 Assessment Team, who tallied the scores of the autopsy reports. Dr. G鈥檚 response to the day of forensic reports: 鈥淭oday I was so impressed,鈥� she said.