Our guest on ST Medical Monday is Dr. Judy Melinek, a board-certified forensic pathologist practicing forensic medicine in California's Bay Area, where she is also the CEO of PathologyExpert, Inc. Lately, Dr. Melinek has been appearing in various media outlets (for example, Vox.com and PBS) as part of her ongoing efforts to re-frame the nation's never-ending gun-control debate as a woefully untreated public-health issue. As she recently posted on Twitter, rhetorically yet directly echoing the sentiments of many other physicians nationwide: "I remember Surgron General C. Everett Koop from my childhood & the impact he made on my generation. What is going to be your impact on public health? Will you make a stand against the gun industry the way Dr. Koop did against Big Tobacco?" Dr. Melinek is also the co-author, with her husband, of a 2014 memoir titled "Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner," which she discusses with us. The book was thus praised by Publishers Weekly: "In this engrossing tale of how Melinek became a forensic pathologist, she pulls back the sheet to show readers just what goes on after someone dies.... Armchair detectives and would-be forensic pathologists will find Melinek's well-written account to be inspiring and engaging."
One Forensic Pathologist Maintains That Our Gun-Control Debate Is Really a Public-Health Issue
