Dr. Arthur Lyons Medical Examiner
Biography of Dr. Arthur Lyons
Dr. Arthur Lyons is the main character in a series of novels by W.R. Anderson. Dr. Lyons is a forensic pathologist practicing in a private Pathology setting in Central Florida after having worked for the government as a Medical Examiner.
A native of Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand, he attended both university and medical school in Auckland, prior to emigrating to the United States in order to take Residency training at the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University Medical School considered by many to be one of the premier training programs in the United States, and arguably the world, and as such probably turned out some of the best trained Pathologists in the country.
He had chosen Pathology, a specialty considered to be the basic science of medicine—translated as the ‘study of disease’—because his bent was more toward the science of medicine than for the ‘art’ of the clinical practice of the craft.
Although he had enjoyed the interactions with patients in making clinical evaluations and diagnoses, he preferred using the relatively exact analysis of tissue and laboratory data that was the backbone of Pathology—particularly the use of the microscope in arriving at the tissue diagnosis of disease and the consequences of injury.
Following the completion of his standard residency training in Pathology, Lyons became interested in the application of medical information to the legal system, and consequently, decided to engage in further training in Forensic Pathology—spending an additional year of training in the Coroner’s office in Los Angeles.
After completing his training, Lyons moved around the country for several years, as was a not-uncommon situation with fledgling Medical Examiners, before finally settling in Orlando, where he became the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner after several years on the staff before striking out on his own in private practice—having become somewhat disillusioned with the politics that infected the office, usually resulting in some arm of the County interfering in cases that presented potentially ‘sensitive’ situations, particularly when deaths related to law enforcement activities were involved.
Forensic Pathology had historically practiced in the setting of governmental organizations and law enforcement—a situation that had engendered a significant degree of bias into what was meant to be an objective, ‘scientific’ endeavor—thereby creating a serious conflict between science and the legal community when it came to determination of facts versus the information that might be most useful to the prosecution’s side in the development of a criminal case.
The advent of an independent forensic investigator had the potential for throwing a monkey-wrench into that paradigm—and along came Dr. Arthur Lyons!
For a number of years, medical examiners had done a small amount of ‘private practice’, usually either performing autopsies for families or consulting on criminal cases well apart from the jurisdictions where they were employed.
While this was really quite limiting from the standpoint of providing any type of ‘quality control’ over others in the practice, it did create an avenue that was ripe for future expansion as more and more attention was directed toward making sure the diagnoses—particularly in criminal cases where someone’s life might hang in the balance—were accurate.
Arthur Lyons was keenly aware of the potential shortcomings and conflicts of interest that arose from an environment wherein the forensic pathologist, while employed by a governmental agency, would potentially—and often actually—would be placed in a situation wherein he or she might have to make a determination as to the cause and manner of death that might place their employer in legal jeopardy.
Clearly, a doctor that came to too many of these ‘adverse opinions’ might find themselves in financial jeopardy.
Dr. Lyons, as a private practitioner of forensic pathology, had found a niche that afforded a relative degree of protection from such outside influences, and had developed a highly-successful practice in the proce
Volume One Highlights
The job of a forensic pathologist is multi-faceted. Not only do they perform autopsies, but also find vital forensic proof of how the deceased died. Completing a death investigation, the medical examiner not only identifies the cause of death but will also resolve the manner of death as suicide, homicide, accident, or natural, and sometimes determines what sort of instrument brought about the death.
That isn’t all by far. Many times, the forensic pathologist will find himself in the middle of a legal battle between the defense and prosecution in court like he did in the case of Travis Cooper, the Boy in the Mat.
From the inception of his involvement with the case, Arthur Lyons had always attempted to base any conclusions upon hard scientific data, irrespective of the course others in the investigation chose to follow even when they were at odds with the irrefutable findings of the pathologist.
Often confronted with resistance to accepting scientifically-proven facts, Dr. Lyons found himself challenged racists in the case of The Boy in the Gym Mat when he refused to be influenced by the differences of opinion between the public, the investigators, and the State’s Chief Medical Examiner himself, by the State Prosecutor in the police killing in the Baltimore Rough Ride case, and by the police and press in the highly-questionable handling of the Case of the Phantom Impact.
Follow Dr. Arthur Lyons through some of the most publicized autopsy cases of his time. Would the pressures of top government legal officials break his findings down to suit them even though it wasn’t the truth?
Would public sentiment get the best of him?
Would he find his career being jeopardized for the sake of keeping his bosses happy?
Would science in the courtroom be trumped by a legal system that prioritizes conviction over justice?
Volume Two Highlights - On Sale Soon
In the determination of cause and manner of deaths in cases that are deemed to be as the result of other than ‘Natural Causes’, the forensic pathologist medical examiner utilized the science of medicine to arrive at the correct answers.
In doing so, however, it isn’t unusual for the doctor to be intimately involved with law enforcement to provide investigative information regarding the circumstances of a death—often critical data needed to make the proper interpretation as to the cause and manner of a death.
Difficulties may arise, however in situations where there is a conflict such as seen in the case of the suspicious Death on the Gold Coast where a questionable ‘suicide’ of the girlfriend of a deputy sheriff is the subject of vigorous backlash from law enforcement after Arthur Lyons determines that the shooting could not have possibly occurred in the manner that had been touted by that same agency in which that deputy was a member.
Similarly, Lyons encountered even more resistance in Death in the Canal, after showing that a police involved incident in the alleged drowning of a young Black man was actually a homicide wherein severe trauma had been inflicted following a somewhat tenuous traffic violation, and the individual actually thrown into that canal.
Subtle homicides often go undetected, as Lyons was to discover in the Angel of Death case, wherein a nurse in an acute care unit of a hospital was actually administering high levels of opiates to patients to hasten their demise—with the rationale of providing a ‘merciful death’ for those individuals.
In this case, Dr. Lyons encountered intense resistance and denial from the hospital administration—intent in squashing any potentially adverse publicity—and the law enforcement personnel intent in protecting their local institution, which wielded considerable political power in the community, from any adversity that might affect their economic contribution to that community.
Follow Dr. Arthur Lyons as he investigates cases which have profound implications to the community, and in the process uncovers some of the forces that are in play to discourage, in many situations, the discovery of the truth.