A Big Deal in Lille

Posted in Forensics, Life by Jonathan on November 1st, 2009

One of the fun things I did this spring/early summer was lecture at the 46th International Meeting of Francophone Legal Medicine. I was invited over by Professor Didier Gosset, the Chief Medical Examiner in Lille, in Northern France.

Didier and his team, including Professor Valéry Hedouin, and Dr. Anne Bécart, forensic odontologist, took great care of me. They put me up at the beautiful Hospice Gantois, an exquisite hotel built in the 1400′s as a hospital. The building has been renovated in an elegantly modern way (I’m a sucker for the combination of clean modern design and old spaces; one of my favourite hotels, the Wheatleigh, near Lenox, Massachusetts, where Calvin Tsao and Zack McKown did a beautiful job renovating a faux Italian palazzo in the Berkshires – I completely stole their bathroom design ideas for my loft in NYC).

My room had a view out over a small park that reminded me of the courtyard gardens in Ico, the brilliant videogame created by Fumito Ueda, about which more here; Ueda is one of the inspirations for Jun Saito, one of Jenner’s closest friends.

The conference was a fascinating glimpse into the differences – and similarities – between the way the French practice forensic pathology, and the way we do it in New York. I spoke for two hours on gunshot wounds; I lectured in French, which was fun for me and doubtless  arduous for the audience. Still, we all survived, probably because my lectures are so heavily illustrated – I showed more than 300 images.

They didn’t guillotine me afterwards, so overall I think it went fairly well. After I’d lectured, I relaxed a little – I got to catch up with old acquaintances and make new friends. We had a great dinner at l’Huitriere, a superb Art Deco Michelin-starred seafood restaurant tucked behind a traditional fish merchant’s.

It was a wonderful experience – I even got a Bronze Medal from the city of Lille for my participation. I wasn’t in Lille long enough to really get to know it, but it’s a lovely city, with handsome old rowhouses with Flemish-style red and brown brick, and an elegant city center; I’ll certainly be back. As a returning Bronze Medalist, I have no doubt that they’ll let me ride the buses and subways for free.