Dr. Leah Bush, Virginia's chief medical examiner for the past four years, doesn't take "undetermined" for an answer. Particularly in the question of "cause of death" on a certificate. The department deals with nearly 6,000 cases a year, about 10% of the deaths in Virginia, and only 3% of cases in 2009 did not have a determined cause.

Bush, who spent the bulk of her career as medical examiner of the Norfolk-based Tidewater region, now spends less time on autopsies, more on administrative tasks:

Conferring with families who dispute a cause of death. Sifting through a year's worth of data to nail down trends gleaned from the thousands of autopsies. Finding new and better ways to do the work—for instance, abandoned and unidentified bodies dating back decades received fresh attention last year after Bush worked with FBI forensic artists to recreate faces from skulls.

"My job now is to look at the big picture," Bush said. "How can we do all of this better? What tools are out there?"

Source: The Virginian-Pilot