Death certificate

Definition

A death certificate is a public, legal document issued by a government official (such as a registrar of vital statistics) that declares the date, location, and cause of a person's death. The physician's principal responsibility in death registration is to complete the medical part of the death certificate, which includes: date and time pronounced dead, date and time of death, whether case was referred to medical examiner or coroner, cause of death section (cause of death, manner of death, tobacco use, pregnancy status for females), injury items (for cases involving injury), and certifier section (with signatures). This term could be used for other kinds of death certificates (e.g. non-US) and for CDA.