Causes of Death and Death Certificates

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For those interested in pursuing the topic of our recent class debate a bit further, below are two items that relate to causes of death and actual death certificates.

Instructions from the Illinois Department of Pubic Health describe the two parts of the cause-of-death portion of the death certificate as follows:

• Part I is for reporting the chain of events that lead directly to death, preceding from the immediate cause of death (i.e., the final disease, injury or complication directly causing death) to the underlying cause of death (i.e., the disease or injury that initiated the chain of morbid events that led directly to the death). Do not enter the mode of dying – such as cardiac or respiratory arrest, shock or heart failure.
• Part II is for reporting all other significant diseases or conditions that contributed to the death but did not result in the underlying cause of death given in Part I.

A brief article written by current Cook Count Chief Medical Examiner in the March 7, 1999 edition of Chicago Medicine. Hopefully, you can see (it should be large enough) a completed example of Part I in this article!