CURATORS TAKE PART IN AMERICAN ACADEMY OF FORENSIC SCIENCES MEETING
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Paul Sledzik, M.S., curator, and Lenore Barbian, Ph.D., assistant curator, of the anatomical collection at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, participated in the scientific program at the 55th annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences held in Chicago. Sledzik served on the organization's 2003 annual meeting program committee, with responsibility for physical anthropology section.

He participated in several workshops as a panelist, discussing management of mass fatality incidents, examining how local agencies and jurisdictions work and interact together after a critical incident, and discussing aspects of victim identification following the crash of United Airlines Flight 93. He also was a panelist during a breakout meeting of the American Society of Forensic Odontology, discussing United Airlines Flight 93. Barbian presented "Fifteen Years of Forensic Anthropology Short Course at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, AFIP." During the presentation, she pointed out that the museum's short course is the only forensic anthropology course offered in the United States that carries continuing medical education credit hours.

Sledzik and Barbian also participated in a paper examining the role of the biological anthropologist in the response to the crash of United Airlines Flight 93. Sledzik and Barbian spent two weeks in Somerset, PA, to support the local coroner in identifying the victims of the crash and working with the FBI collecting evidence to be used when the terrorists are brought to justice.

Forensic anthropology is the application of the science of physical anthropology to the legal process to identify human remains and to assist in the detection of crime. In addition to assisting in locating and recovering suspicious remains, forensic anthropologists work to suggest the age, sex, ancestry, stature, and unique features of a decedent from the skeletal remains.

Sledzik came to the museum in 1986 as collections manager of anatomical and skeletal collections and was named curator in 1989. He is also a forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner and former team commander of the Region III Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team in the National Disaster Medical System. He is also on the board of directors of the Ellis R. Kerley Forensic Sciences Foundation in San Diego, Calif. and a member of the Forensic Advisory Board of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in Alexandria, Va.

Sledzik has a master's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Connecticut and a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of Rhode Island. He resides in Germantown, Md. with his wife and family.

Barbian has been an instructor at Montgomery College of Maryland, the University of Florida, and the University of Massachusetts. She was also a physical anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History and a research coordinator for the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Florida. Barbian earned her doctoral and master's degrees in anthropology from the University of Massachusetts, and her bachelor's of arts in anthropology from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Sledzik and Barbian have provided forensic consultation for the Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner and the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the Virginia State Medical Examiner, Northern Virginia Office; the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Maryland, the Somerset County, Pa. Coroner; and the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT) Region III. The National Museum of Health and Medicine began as the national repository for Civil War injuries when Surgeon General William Hammond directed medical officers in the field to collect "specimens of morbid anatomy . . . together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed" and to forward them to the newly founded museum for study.

The museum's first curator visited battlefields and solicited contributions from doctors throughout the Union Army. During and after the war, museum staff took pictures of wounded soldiers showing effects of gunshot wounds as well as results of amputations and other surgical procedures.

The information collected was compiled into six volumes of "The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion," published between 1870 and 1883. The collection continues to support advances in clinical research. In addition to the 2,000 specimens in the Civil War Skeletal Collection, the anatomical collection at The National Museum of Health and Medicine includes about a dozen other collections of anatomical and pathological skeletal specimens; medical research collections containing slides, tissue blocks, and related documentary materials; fluid-preserved gross organs, and other miscellaneous material. The collections are accessible to researchers in pathology, forensic pathology, forensic anthropology, physical anthropology, Civil War medical history, orthopedic injuries, and human biology.