[Actual autopsy functions: perceptions and opinions of postgraduate training physicians on oncology specialities]

How the physician situates the autopsy among the elements to improve the clinical performance is related to the possibility that he or she requests it to the patient's family and that they authorize it.

To explore the perceptions and perspectives that medical post graduate trainees on oncology specialities have of the potential current functions of the autopsy.

A semi-structured written questionnaire with four questions was applied to residents in surgical oncology, medical oncology and radio-oncology.

34 medical residents were invited and all of them participated. 100% of the residents had an expectative of improvement in the clinical practice if more autopsies were done. The more frequent reasons to justify this expectative were: to establish the definitive diagnosis in controversial or poorly defined cases in 47% and the contrast between clinical and necropsy diagnosis, in 38%. The concept of the autopsy as a resource to evaluate the quality of the everyday clinical diagnosis was excluded by 59% of the residents.

The autopsy is frequently visualized by the medical residents as a procedure which utility is limited to the solution of diagnostic discrepancies in selected cases. This situation could impede its function as a reference for the critique of clinical diagnoses and for the detection of medical errors in the more habitual cases in a specific setting and whose diagnosis is not controversial.