In the Western world the autopsy rate is declining at an alarming rate. In
the United States of America the rate in some academic hospitals is less th
an 7% of all hospital deaths. This decline has been documented and deplored
in many countries, articles and books. Suggestions on how to resuscitate t
he autopsy range from mandatory in all hospital deaths to economic bonuses
to the doctors obtaining the highest autopsy rate. All in vain, the autopsy
decline continues. Pathologists deploring this decline blamed clinical col
leagues, new social attitudes, the litigious nature of modern society, but
few have questioned a procedure little changed in more than a century. Perh
aps the time has come to abandon the "classic" autopsy and rethink the proc
edure so as to make it useful, alluring and indispensable for the contempor
ary, concerned clinician.