By Gerry Boyle '78

It is perhaps one of the few conferences where the schedule includes lectures on subjects like bloodstain-pattern analysis and bite-mark identification--with breaks for "refreshments and conversation."

The New England Seminar in Forensic Science, in its 28th year at Colby (the only undergraduate college in the U.S. accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education credit to physicians), offers death investigators the opportunity to learn from some of the most renowned forensic experts in the country. Medical examiners, coroners, attorneys and detectives gather on Mayflower Hill each August to receive instruction in subjects some might think ghoulish.

"They're going to study everything from how do you approach people killed in a fire, people who die in jail or institutional custody, sharp versus blunt-force injuries," said Gregory J. Davis, associate chief medical examiner for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, a professor of pathology at the University of Kentucky School of Medicine and co-director of the Colby conference. "What about gunshot wounds? What about blood spatter at the scene? What does it mean? How can a dentist be used to help identify people burned up or decomposed?"

While the prospect might leave some laymen cold, if not clammy, these are the questions that face medical examiners and other investigators day in and day out. And not only do they warm to the topics at Colby, but burnout-risking professionals say the week in Waterville can be like a balm. "It not only allows you a chance to exchange information and get out of your rut, but it also rejuvenates you," said conference co-director Fred B. Jordan, chief medical examiner for Oklahoma, who endured firsthand the horrors of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The emotional toll associated with forensic investigation doesn't get much media play, though the field itself has become the stuff of novels, TV and movies. Davis said the media exposure can be a double-edged sword that gives the public an exaggerated sense of what coroners and medical examiners can determine. "On the other hand, a little publicity doesn't hurt," he said. "And to be known as something other than the ghouls who reside in the basement is a blessing."

In fact, time spent in the midst of this forensic family last summer showed them to be anything but ghoulish. Cases are related matter-of-factly, albeit with an occasional tinge of emergency-room humor. Marcella Sorg, a forensic anthropologist for a Maine medical examiner's office, professor at the University of Maine, Colby conference faculty member and author of two definitive books on the study of postmortem remains, has seen some of the most horrific things imaginable in her 25 years in the field. But referring to one corpse used as a case study, she said, "she cleaned up well." Sorg said levity is just one way that forensic professionals cope--and continue to do their jobs.

Davis, who specializes in deaths from drugs and gunshots, said he welcomes the public into the world of forensic science. "I want the public to know what we do, and our limitations," he said. "What I do not want to do is entertain them. I do not think that what we do is entertaining in the least. What has to be retained . . . is that every time I talk about a case with a student or a fellow physician or a member of the press, as clichéd as this sounds, the basic truth of what we do is that that [person] is somebody's loved one. That is not just a hunk of biological material on a table. It's the body of somebody's loved one and it needs to be treated with that respect and that dignity."