Anyone else feel uncomfortable signing death certificates?
I work in family med so we pretty regularly have patients pass away from various causes. We often get calls from police officers demanding to know immediately if we will agree to sign the death certificate. The first time I ever got one of these calls I asked the officer for more information about the patient's death, and he was like "I dunno, he was found dead in his home tonight and we don't suspect foul play". I asked my colleagues about this and they told me you pretty much just have to agree to sign off on it even when you know next to nothing about the actual cause of death so that the police, funeral home, insurers, etc can move the process along.
It just feels weird to be basically making up bullshit on an official government document with my name and license attached to it..