Forensic Pathologist

 A pathologist is needed for almost every investigation where a person (or people) dies. Forensic pathologists perform postmortems (autopsies) to determine the cause of death. By studying tissue and laboratory results, they're usually able to determine how a person died and give evidence in court about how that person actually dies as well as the time at which they died. They play a very big role in an investigation team as the evidence that they provide cannot only be used in court, but it can also help the detectives to further improve their theories on the case as more evidence is being provided. The evidence that they give can also be paired and linked with other pieces of evidence which can in most cases lead to the criminal getting caught. Forensic pathologists would generally visit the scene of the crime to gather information that they can later use when examining the body, this would include what they were doing at the time and what they were wearing. When they get back to the lab they would conduct a postmortem on the body which would include examining clothing, the body itself and the internal organs.

Fire Investigation
A forensic pathologist is not needed in every fire investigation as they are only useful if a body needs to be analysed. A forensic pathologist will never need to leave the lab to visit a crime scene during a fire investigation as this is not where they are needed, their main role is to perform a postmortem on victims that were killed in a fire investigation. This is very helpful to police as a forensic pathologist can find out exactly what time that person died as well as how they died, for example if the forensic pathologist found that a body was drenched in gas and set alight by a match then this can lead police to believe that it is a murder case whereas if the pathologist found that the person had died due to smoke inhalation then this could lead the police to believe that the death could have been accidental. According to http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu all evidence found by forensic pathologists can also be used as evidence in court to support a prosecution which also benefits the police. The only other organisation or agency that a forensic pathologist would have communication with in a fire investigation would be the police and the detective currently working on the investigation, this usually is not done verbally, once the forensic pathologist has done an autopsy on the victim he will not down his findings with pictures as supporting evidence and then send this to police so they can use it as evidence in court. Overall, i think that in some fire investigations a forensic pathologist can be an important role in a fire investigation but they are not needed in every investigation. There role can be very beneficial in deliberately caused fires as they are able to find out how a person has died which can benefit the police and the detective working on that case as it can give them new leads, for example the police may have thought that a person has just died from the actual fire, but the forensic pathologist can find out that they were shot before they were burnt which alerts the police that this is a murder case. However, if the case had no casualties then the forensic pathologist will have no role to play and can not help in the investigation process which can be seen as a weakness as not all fires result in casualties.