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Specific Features
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Odor control - eighteen air handlers each with its own Cosatron air ionizer - a state-of-the-art odor and filterable dirt control system, that has proved its ability to work. With 85% recirculated air even the decomposed body building smells clean after ten minutes of circulation with the dissecting room door closed. An added plus is energy efficiency when chilled air is recirculated rather than being exhausted to the outside.
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Lighting in autopsy areas - 100-foot candles at each dissecting station plus auxiliary spots for adjacent tissue dissection tables. Increasing to 700-foot candles when surgical spotlight is on.
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Technical furniture - custom designed laboratory stainless steel furnishings are mobile for ease of cleaning.
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Housekeeping - Service Engineering Associates were contracted to prepare the housekeeping plan and to prepare precise housekeeping bid specifications. The result is a building, already occupied for over a decade, which appears brand new and will continue to look that way for decades to come.
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Toxicology laboratory - the largest toxicology laboratory in Florida occupies 20,000 square feet of space dedicated to the discovery of trace amounts of toxins in tissue and blood.
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Piping and cabling - piped in analytical gases and computer links extend to the many complex mass spectrometers and gas chromatographs. Pyrex glass sanitary sewer lines facilitate maintenance.
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Future expansion - beneath the entire second floor of the laboratory building is one vast walk space for future utility line placement as well as ready repair of existing lines.
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Fume hoods - Twenty-two fume hoods serve the various laboratories.
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Histology laboratory - a large four-room suite built with strict controls for solvent fumes.
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Photography - the photographic suite, replete with multiple computers and dickers for image creation and manipulation, is supplemented by an indoor firearms range for high-speed pictures of bullets in flight and motion pictures at 12,000 frames per second! These specialty photographs are used in court proceedings for juries to comprehend evidence.
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Bone and Tissue Harvesting Capability - today, the transplantation of whole organs, bone tissue and corneas is accepted medical practice. Bone and ligamentous tissue may be harvested from uninfected dead bodies. Within the laboratory building is a six-room suite, including a standard surgical operating room, for just this purpose. This is the only medical examiner facility in the world with such a well-designed operational capability.
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Records – The vast knowledge accumulated in the files and by the professional staff is dedicated to education. Two record research rooms are available for scholars to study original records dating back to 1956.
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Classroom/Auditorium – an auditorium, seating for one hundred, can be separated into two classrooms. Two additional spacious conference rooms permit students, physicians, police and other scholars to attend classes and seminars on a regular basis. Additionally, the auditorium, with multiple telephone floor jacks, is designed to serve as the control center in event of a disaster.
A flow of visitors, from as far as Australia, have viewed the facility for ideas on how to construct and maintain a modern state-of-the-art medical examiner facility.
From concepts to reality – this is the building that all personnel contributed their thoughts to design. Its beauty, cleanliness and functions constitute a monument to these employees.
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