News and press interest – 7th July 2008

Delegates from across Ireland and as far as the Netherlands convened at the recent International Forensic Imaging Symposium hosted by the University College Dublin (UCD). The weekend event, held from Friday 4th July until Sunday 6th July was held in association with the Irish Institute of Radiography and Radiation Therapy, The Inforce Foundation with Cranfield University, Quinnipiac University, USA and was organised locally by Jonathan McNulty (UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science). The central theme was the practical and multidisciplinary approach to imaging in the forensic investigation.

An intensive programme started with one of three absorbing lectures from Professor Gill Brogdon (see picture on the left) (author of Forensic Radiology and a Radiologic Atlas of Abuse, Torture, Terrorism, and Inflicted Trauma, CRC Press) on the history and future development of Forensic Radiology.

Clinical imaging, including radiography and most recently Computed Tomography (CT) scanning  have featured heavily in the investigation of sudden and suspicious death from the birth of the science of radiology in 1895. Professor Brogdon provided a number of historical illustrations from the demonstration of injury to support litigation in the late 1890’s, the identification of Adolf Hitler from his intricate dental work through to the use of CT with surface scanning to identify mechanisms of injury such as origin, trajectory and sequence of bullets.

Further presentations covered the role of the Anthropologist and Odontologist, the role of the expert witness, and imaging techniques in single and multiple death investigations. Professor Jerry Conologue (see picture on the right) provided an insightful account of adaptive practice in the Paleoimaging of mummified remains using flexible Polaroid® film and plenty of initiative!

Theoretical presentations were then reinforced with practical, problem based training sessions devised by a team from the Inforce Foundation, consisting of Mark Viner, Roland Wessling and Ambika Flavel, and Jonathan McNulty from UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science. Here, the primary objective was the identification of the two deceased individuals. Delegates were guided by an expert team including Professors Brogdon and Conologue through a systematic approach to post mortem identification.

Delegates also practiced fluoroscopy skills (see picture on the left), followed by skeletal and dental radiography techniques. Of the training sessions, Emily Faircloth, Vice-Chair of the Association of Forensic Radiographers commented: “These simulations were a huge advantage for delegates in having the opportunity to put theory into immediate practice within a realistic setting. Trainers and delegates were unanimously impressed with the usability and image quality achieved by the digital equipment provided by Xograph Imaging systems and Kodak.”

Another practical session demonstrated forensic anthropological examination techniques of skeletal remains to determine a profile of the deceased, including chronological age range, stature, biological sex, ancestry, trauma and pathology (see picture on the right).

All of the practical sessions combined to give the delegates a comprehensive overview of what would be expected of them were they to deploy in a mass fatality incident, such as the Asian Tsunami, the London bombings or in the investigation of atrocity crimes and large scale human rights abuses.

This multidisciplinary symposium was a resounding success in joining those with expertise, experience or a professional interest in forensic radiography with a full range of presentations, discussions, demonstrations and practical simulation to satisfy the most ardent forensic radiographer.

Further information on this event and other training programmes in forensic radiography is available from: www.afr.org.uk.

For more information on related topics such as forensic archaeology anthropology, see www.cranfield.ac.uk/forensics.