Pathologist's Assistant - It's just a job

", removed a young girl binge-drinker's livers etc.
A Hilter 13-Dec-2008 10:12 "

Funny, in my experience most people only have one liver. Shows what sort of a pathologist you must be! Tosser

I'm a pathologist and I love it. I enjoy asking my friends "what did you do at work today?" and they'll say "not much, a bit of photocopying, sent an e-mail and tried to flirt with the new office boy..." and they'll ask me what I did and I'll say "removed nipple piercings from a dead teenage car crash victim with pliers, sewed a man back together who had been pulled out of a potato grader in pieces, removed a young girl binge-drinker's livers etc. I get a real kick out of cutting up dead people!

chris....as well as being an auxillary, are you a catholic priest? If not, how do you perform the last rites? I'm baffled by this. Not only that but if somebody in a hospital is going to perform CPR then shouldn't it be a trained nurse?

please can you show some of the thing a pathologist does in a postmortal

Aldo - your article hit the nail on the head with the 'curiosity' article. Most people, although they don't like to admit it, have this curiosity of the weakness of the human body.
Like you said, that's why they rubberneck at accidents, read Women's magazines with gruesome true stories, and more.
Your job is a job that has to be done, and like you say, it is a clinical proffession.
Is a surgeon a gore fetishist? Nope. Is a sewer maintenance worker a faecal fanatic? Nope!
Is an abbatoir worker obsessed with killing? No!
Not sure why Narff had to make that offensive and unfunny comment though. Probably because he/she isn't ballsy enough to do it to people in real life - and has to use the internet to make themselves feel big & clever?

I work as a Nursing Auxiliary. I clean, feed, talk to, carry out CPR and tend to the hygene needs of patients. Old, young. Deal with Alcoholics, dementia, parkinsons, cancer, blood born diseases. I clean up dead patients, perform last rights. Non of this compares to the selfishness of living patient relatives though.

I love the job. Nobody outside the hospital truly understands what it takes to do the job or what's involved.

I suppose at the end of the day a pathology job is just a job, but human beings are curious creatures, hence the facination with RTAs. I'm sure working with the "expired" has got to be more pleasant than working with some of the obnoxious living people I have to deal with!

Aldo, what I don't understand is why people assume you have to be odd to work as a Pathology Assistant.

I too work in a hospital, though my job is a more mundane job. I wouldn't consider anyone odd for choosing what they want to do, whether it be dealing with the dead or not.

I know a few people who work in the Pathology department at our hospital Trust and they are far from odd, they have the most wicked sense of humour and are a right laugh.

I too can't understand the need to rubberneck at RTAs. If people want to see blood, guts and injured people, why don't they watch a horror film or even worse... Casualty or Holby City. If I have to drive by an accident (baring in mind, I don't believe accidents happen) then I keep my head straight ahead. I've been in many traffic jams caused by rubberneckers not watching whats going on ahead and causing another pile up.

Never mind the artifiical hips, what about the smell? Is the whiff of Fomaldehyde difficult to shake?

Aldo,you are a real pillar of the community & I admire you for what you do.Keep up the good work!