Overview

The UAB autopsy service has a long history of performing autopsies to provide postmortem diagnoses, confirm antemortem diagnoses and help explain mechanisms of death for both inpatients and outpatients treated at UAB. The UAB autopsy service functions as a Regional Autopsy Center serving not only the University but also several community hospitals, state agencies and selected private cases. The autopsy service averages approximately 300-350 autopsies per year made up of a variety of types of cases from perinatal to adult and some forensic cases. It is the goal of the UAB autopsy service to provide answers regarding what may have led to or contributed to a death to clinicians and families. 

Faculty and Staff

The UAB autopsy service is staffed with 1 full-time adult/forensic pathologist, 1 full-time adult/cardiac pathologist and 1 full-time perinatal pathologist. The diverse backgrounds of the attending pathologists enables the service to handle the wide variety of cases that the service takes on.  The autopsy service is supported by the UAB hospital laboratories technical staff including 1 technical director, 3 autopsy technicians and 4 decedent affairs staff. The UAB autopsy service works in close conjunction with the UAB Neuropathology Department to provide postmortem diagnostic neuropathology services.

Education    

Resident and medical student education is a highlight of the autopsy service at UAB. Pathology residents and medical students are actively involved in the autopsy service during a 3-month rotation and their first year. The service has a weekly routine gross pathology conference and a weekly routine final anatomic diagnosis conference. The autopsy service supports routine clinical pathologic correlation conferences and surgical morbidity and mortality conferences. The autopsy faculty also are active in teaching courses and laboratories at the UAB Heersink School of Medicine.

Research

The UAB autopsy service enables research collaborations through the UAB Tissue Biorepository, the CCTS COVID-19 enterprise research initiative, the UAB Cancer Center in various clinical departments.

Faculty and Staff

Paul Benson, MD - Associate Professor, Anatomic Pathology - Section Head

Virginia Duncan, MD -Assistant Professor, Anatomic Pathology

Silvio Litovsky, MD - Professor, Anatomic Pathology

Thurman Richardson, PA – Technical Director

Stephanie Reilly, M.D., Associate Professor (retired), Anatomic Pathology (part-time)