The Office of the Medical Investigator administration is open 8 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday. Parking is available in the front of the building (see driving directions).
There is no charge to families for any services on cases determined to be under OMI jurisdiction. There are, however, fees charged for consult cases and for other services. Please see the fee schedule for current OMI fees.
Those deaths to be reported to the Office of the Medical Investigator include all deaths occurring in New Mexico as outlined below regardless of where or when the initial injuring event occurred. (Skull with gunshot wounds shown below)
A coroner is a public official, appointed or elected, in a particular geographic jurisdiction, whose official duty is to make inquiry into deaths in certain categories. The office of coroner or "crowner" dates back to medieval days when the crowner was responsible for looking into deaths to be sure death duties were paid to the King.
The coroner's primary duty in contemporary times is to make inquiry into the death and complete the certificate of death. The coroner assigns a cause and manner of death and lists them on the certificate of death. The cause of death refers to the disease, injury or poison that caused the death. The coroner also decides if a death occurred under natural circumstances or was due to accident, homicide, suicide or undetermined means or circumstances. Coroners are called upon to decide if a death was due to foul play.
Depending upon the jurisdiction and the law defining the coroner's duties, the coroner may or may not be trained in the medical sciences. The coroner may employ physicians, pathologists, or forensic pathologists to perform autopsies when there appears to be a question of cause or manner of death that autopsy can elucidate.
In some jurisdictions, the coroner is a physician, but in many localities, the coroner is not required to be a physician nor be trained in medicine. In the absence of medical expertise, the non-physician coroner may have difficulty in sorting out subtle non-violent and violent causes of death. Ten states use coroners as their only official death investigation professional.
A medical examiner is a physician, hence, the title medical examiner. When acting in an official capacity, the physician medical examiner is charged, within a particular jurisdiction, with the investigation and examination of persons dying a sudden, unexpected or violent death and with determining the cause and manner of the death. The manner of death is: homicide, suicide, accidental, natural or undetermined.
The role of a medical examiner differs from that of the non-physician coroner in that the medical examiner is expected to bring medical expertise to the evaluation of the medical history and physical examination of the deceased. The physician medical examiner usually is not required to be a specialist in death investigation or pathology and may practice any branch of medicine.
Most systems employing physicians as part time medical examiners encourage them to take advantage of medical training for medical examiners to increase their level of medical expertise as applied to death investigation. The National Association of Medical Examiners and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences are two organizations that offer specialized training. Twenty-three states have medical examiner systems, and 18 have mixed systems; that is, Medical examiner and coroner.
A pathologist is a physician trained in the medical specialty of pathology. Pathology is the branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis of disease and causes of death by means of laboratory examination of body fluids (clinical pathology) cell samples, (cytology) and tissues (anatomic pathology). The autopsy is the procedure utilized to study the dead. It is primarily a systematic external and internal examination for the purposes of diagnosing disease and determining the presence or absence of injury.
The forensic pathologist is a subspecialist in pathology whose area of special competence is the examination of persons who die suddenly, unexpectedly or violently. The forensic pathologist is an expert in determining cause and manner of death.
The forensic pathologist is specially trained: to perform autopsies to determine the presence or absence of disease, injury or poisoning; to evaluate historical and law-enforcement investigative information relating to manner of death; to collect medical evidence, such as trace evidence and secretions, to document sexual assault; and to reconstruct how a person received injuries.
No. The New Mexico Medical Board is responsible for complaints regarding family physicians.
If you have a complaint about our staff please feel free to contact us at 505-272-3053.