Episode #9 - High Truths on Drugs and Addiction: Medical Examiner, Dr. Steven Campman, MD Highlights Deaths from Overdoses

 Dr. Steven C. Campman is San Diego County’s Chief Deputy Medical Examiner.  He earned his B.S. in Biology from Loyola Marymount University in 1987; graduated from Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, in 1992, and then completed residency in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at the University of California, Davis Medical Center, in 1997.  Following fellowship training in Forensic Pathology with the Northern California Forensic Pathology Group at the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office in 1998, he went to work for the US Air Force and was stationed at the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, in Washington DC, as Associate, then Deputy and Chief Deputy Medical Examiner for Medicolegal Operations and Investigations, until he went to work for the County in 2001 (later continuing to serve in the Air Force Reserve as a Regional Medical Examiner until he retired).  He is Board Certified in Anatomical/Clinical, and Forensic Pathology, continues to regularly perform autopsies while managing the Pathology Division of the Medical Examiner’s Department, and testifies regularly in CA Superior Court. 

Learning Points:

• Deaths due to drug overdoses and drug toxicity are preventable deaths.
• Drugs taken not from a pharmacy – should be considered deadly.
• A Medical Examiner is a medical doctor and a coroner is a law enforcement professional. Most of the United States has coroners.
• Death Certificates are not always accurate. There is an art and education in completing these correctly.
• Most people do not obtain an autopsy upon deaths. Only about 10% or less of deaths are investigated.
• Association of death are not typically included in a cause of death. For example, a person who died in a car collision while intoxicated on alcohol and drugs will have a cause of death listed a accident due to blunt force trauma.
• Fentanyl deaths have more than doubled in San Diego in the past year. Fentanyl deaths can happen fast. Fentanyl has been found in fake pills, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, and even vaping products.
• Hospitals should include fentanyl in urine drugs testing in an automatic and universal manner.
• This episode was recorded at the end of October when COVID did not attack California. Since then, California has led the nation in COVID deaths.