Federal Grant Award Summary

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) awarded Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner a $150,000 Project Grant under the Strengthening the Medical Examiner-Coroner System program (CFDA 16.037) on October 1, 2025, with a completion date of September 30, 2028. This award funds the establishment and operation of a graduate medical education forensic pathology fellowship program designed to address the critical nationwide shortage of board-certified forensic pathologists. The grant specifically subsidizes costs for at least one forensic pathology fellow per year at one of up to three Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-approved fellowship positions.

Fellows participating in this program will receive comprehensive training through a high-volume caseload, performing 200–250 autopsies annually while gaining expertise in medicolegal death scene assessment and findings communication. The program leverages Maricopa County's capacity as one of the five busiest medical examiner offices in the nation, which conducts over 7,800 full medicolegal death investigations and 5,900 postmortem examinations annually. Additional training rotations are provided through partnerships with the City of Phoenix Police Department Crime Laboratory and NMS Labs for toxicology instruction. This initiative directly supports the national effort to increase the supply of board-certified forensic pathologists, of which only approximately 750 are currently working full-time in the United States despite demand for more than twice that number.