Jurisdiction Description 

The Office of the Medical Examiner, located within the Pathology Department at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine (WMed) in Kalamazoo, Michigan, is appointed to serve as the Medical Examiner for 13 counties in western Michigan, including: Allegan, Barry, Berrien, Calhoun, Cass, Grand Traverse, Kalamazoo, Leelanau, Mason, Muskegon, Osceola, St. Joseph, and Van Buren counties. The population for these 13 counties is approximately 1.26 million with about half of the region deemed urban versus rural. Approximately 34% of all deaths in each of these 13 counties are reported to our office. In 2021, 5,192 deaths were reported to our office, and we performed 1,196 postmortem examinations. The office is fully staffed with seven full-time board-certified forensic pathologists who serve as either the Medical Examiner (ME) or a Deputy Medical Examiner (DME), two forensic anthropologists, and a forensic toxicologist. Multiple Medical Examiner Investigators (MEIs), in some states known as Medicolegal Death Investigators, are in each county performing scene investigations, arriving on scene within one hour of all deaths reported that meet our jurisdictional requirements. An ME or DME is always on-call, and every death is reported by the MEI to the ME or DME from the scene, unless it clearly meets criteria for a postmortem examination, in which case the decedent is sent to our facility for an examination.

The Medical Examiner’s Office has multiple strong ties through ongoing projects and collaborative programs with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), including the following: