Bodies.

[PathFuture]

Hey there I am not a big fan of dead bodies.., in fact they completely and absoulutely creep me out. Is this normal for someone interested in path? I know for a fact i dont wanna be a foresinic pathologist.., more along the lines of a clinical pathologist who looks at the samples a doctor sends them and diagnoses etc. I was wondering how much of residency has to deal with autopsies and dead bodies?

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[KeratinPearls]

You might want to think hard about pathology as autopsy service will most likely disturb you. You will need to perform 50 autopsies during your residency. I performed my first autopsy today and boy was it nasty, especially when you have to dissect open the intestines and clean out all the feces. The smell will stick with you for life. Anyways, you're a premed so you have a lot of time to explore other fields of medicine.

Good luck.

 

[Gut Shot]

Hey there I am not a big fan of dead bodies.., in fact they completely and absoulutely creep me out. Is this normal for someone interested in path? I know for a fact i dont wanna be a foresinic pathologist.., more along the lines of a clinical pathologist who looks at the samples a doctor sends them and diagnoses etc. I was wondering how much of residency has to deal with autopsies and dead bodies?

Flavorful Body Brisket

INGREDIENTS

1 (5 pound) dead body brisket
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup water
1 (18 ounce) bottle barbecue sauce

DIRECTIONS

In a Dutch oven, brown brisket in oil on both sides over medium-high heat; drain. Top with onion, salt and pepper. Add water; cover and bake at 325 degrees F for 2-1/2 hours or until tender. Remove brisket; refrigerate overnight. Discard onion and cooking liquid. Slice meat 1/4 in. thick; place in a roasting pan. Add barbecue sauce. Cover and bake at 325 degrees F for 30-45 minutes or until heated through.

REVIEWS

4/5 Stars
Reviewed on Nov. 6, 2006 by LISA
this was outstanding. i was looking for a way to surprise my husband so he would not have to tend to the outdoor grill in the cold. he loved it. thank you.

 

[MirkoCrocop]

You might want to think hard about pathology as autopsy service will most likely disturb you. You will need to perform 50 autopsies during your residency. I performed my first autopsy today and boy was it nasty, especially when you have to dissect open the intestines and clean out all the feces. The smell will stick with you for life. Anyways, you're a premed so you have a lot of time to explore other fields of medicine.

Good luck.

lol keratin... saw my first one this week as well, and i wholeheartily agree about the opening of the colon...

when someone dies there still a ton of poop in their intestines, and you literally scissor it all open end to end over this toilet like structure... the smell is unbelievable...

 

[yaah]

50 autopsies is not that many. Lots of people have preconceived notions of what autopsies or pathology will be like, and they make significant life decisions based on these preconceived notions (like, for example, "I am grossed out by dead bodies.") Do you know you are totally grossed out by dead bodies or do you just think you are? Lots of people think they are because maybe they saw one autopsy during med school and they think that they personally are too much of a sensitive soul to deal with death on that level. The vast majority of these individuals will have no trouble when they get to residency in dealing with autopsies. Those that do have trouble with the first couple and then get used to it. I'm something of a sensitive soul but I have no qualms about laying into an autopsy body with a sharp blade. I don't really enjoy it but they are for reasons other than "it's gross."

If you go into private practice there are some jobs where you have to do occasional (like a few a year) autopsies, but many you don't do any.

There are a lot of med students who have these ideas about themselves that they can't do pathology because they like people too much. That's bullcrap.

 

[mcfaddens]

Flavorful Body Brisket

INGREDIENTS

1 (5 pound) dead body brisket
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup water
1 (18 ounce) bottle barbecue sauce

DIRECTIONS

In a Dutch oven, brown brisket in oil on both sides over medium-high heat; drain. Top with onion, salt and pepper. Add water; cover and bake at 325 degrees F for 2-1/2 hours or until tender. Remove brisket; refrigerate overnight. Discard onion and cooking liquid. Slice meat 1/4 in. thick; place in a roasting pan. Add barbecue sauce. Cover and bake at 325 degrees F for 30-45 minutes or until heated through.

REVIEWS

4/5 Stars
Reviewed on Nov. 6, 2006 by LISA
this was outstanding. i was looking for a way to surprise my husband so he would not have to tend to the outdoor grill in the cold. he loved it. thank you.

Remember you are what you eat, and one onion doesn’t sound like nearly enough.
We shouldn’t make light of cutting up someone, remember it may be you on that table someday. But for the pre med, in clinical path you don’t spend much time looking at urine samples they go directly on the machine check out the FAQ's sections on this page to get a better idea of what path really is. I don’t care for the autopsy thing as well but it is necessary to learn the whole spectrum of what path is. You do them and then its over. At your stage in life the sky is the limit, I thought I wanted to do plastics but things change (maybe should have kept that goal in hindsight) but I’m happy with my decision to do path and if you are a very observant person this might be the field for you. I completely agree with yaah the field needs more outgoing personable people, because as a pathologist you are constantly communicating with other folks. It’s really not the right field for the introverted, contrary to popular belief.

 

[DrBloodmoney]

Trust me, LIVE bodies are far more nasty and distasteful.

Wait until you have to run the bowel on a decomp case at the ME's. I swear that will continue to haunt me for years to come.

 

[yaah]

Trust me, LIVE bodies are far more nasty and distasteful.

Wait until you have to run the bowel on a decomp case at the ME's. I swear that will continue to haunt me for years to come.

The thing that haunted me about decomps the most (apart from the smell) was the site of the brain liquefying in front of me. I think the guy had been dead for over a week, but we opened the skull, and the brain still looked like a brain, but the ME let it fall into a bucket and it basically liquified in front of our eyes, collapsing and turning to mush without any other intervention or touching.

 

[mlw03]

The thing that haunted me about decomps the most (apart from the smell) was the site of the brain liquefying in front of me. I think the guy had been dead for over a week, but we opened the skull, and the brain still looked like a brain, but the ME let it fall into a bucket and it basically liquified in front of our eyes, collapsing and turning to mush without any other intervention or touching.

yeah, i'll always remember my first decomp brain for the same reason. one FP i know and admire calls decomps their "job insurance" because even among the general pathologists that can tolerate regular autopsies, NO ONE likes decomps, including the FPs. but they have to get done (despite the fact that you often gain little useful information from the postmortem exam, but that's another discussion).

 

[gbwillner]

Hey there I am not a big fan of dead bodies.., in fact they completely and absoulutely creep me out. Is this normal for someone interested in path? I know for a fact i dont wanna be a foresinic pathologist.., more along the lines of a clinical pathologist who looks at the samples a doctor sends them and diagnoses etc. I was wondering how much of residency has to deal with autopsies and dead bodies?

You'll get used to it. After a while you'll tell others how your overnight fixed fetal liver looks medium-rare after sectioning.

 

[Mindy]

This thread is KILLING me!!!!

Why do people find autopsies so distasteful??? Even decos aren't that bad!

My job is so ridiculously (and trust me, I really do mean ridiculous) interesting. I find it so hard to believe that other pathologists do not see it that way.

Oh, well...that's job security!

Mindy

 

[mlw03]

come on mindy - decomps ARE that bad. that said, they're not that frequently encountered and you just suck it up for the hour.

i'm glad for the general dislike of autopsies among our colleagues. while everyone and their brother seems to clamor for a derm or GI fellowship, there are more than enough spots for everyone who'll want a FP fellowship. and after fellowship, i'm told there are plenty of jobs out there because there are less than 500 FPs practicing across the US.

 

[tardieu]

This thread is KILLING me!!!!


Mindy

With this post, I do the post. Results:

COD: Flabbergastation

Contributing condition: Autopsy intoxication

MOD: SDNocide

 

[Arctic Char]

yuck, decomps are seriously foul. one time i had to pull some dude out from a corner in his basement, so i pulled at his arm, at the elbow, and everything just slipped off the bone all the way to his wrist. i was all alone, so at that moment i broke into my heeby-jeeby dance and bascially freaked out for a minute or two.

man, that was an awful job! "Autopsy Assistant" . . . which meant doing removals from sites of death, and, of course, autopsies. ironically, it was because of this job experience that i concluded - at the beginning of med school - that the only thing i knew for sure was that i didn't want to be a pathologist. haha, look at me know! can't wait to be one!

i tell people this way: when i was working that job before med school, I didn't know what i was looking at so it was just nasty, smelly body parts. but now, every detail has meaning and so is very interesting to me!

 

[Mindy]

Decos are super interesting to me...
I am not kidding.

Decos are real forensics. And they are just people. We need to make sure they did not die as a result of "foul play" too.

Plus, its a lot like an ecology lesson...

 

[Mindy]

Ok--one more tidbit: I sorta get a kick out of people seeing their first deco... (Sorry Boston area path residents and med students!)

Mindy

 

[DrBloodmoney]

This thread is KILLING me!!!!

Why do people find autopsies so distasteful??? Even decos aren't that bad!

Mindy

Now come on - decomps are horrible.

There's a reason why even the staff ME's at OCME in Baltimore call the door to their decomp room 'The portal to Hell'...

 

[deschutes]

I didn't mind the decomps. But the smell that had me gagging was the smell of the ME morgue fridge. I swear if that thing was ever vented to the outside, the result would be ecological wasteland within a one-mile radius.

 

[GreatPumpkin]

I did a grand total of 9 autopsies last year. If you like other parts of path you can struggle through a few autopsies.

Pick a program that does not do a ton. Just enough, as like was said you need 50.

 

[pathgrrl]

I'm with Mindy, every autopsy is a mystery and it is fascinating, strange, and incredible that we have the opportunity to dissect a whole human being. There are very few people who dissect embalmed cadavers, and even fewer of us privileged enough to seek the cause of illness and death when medicine falters.

...especially when you have to dissect open the intestines and clean out all the feces. The smell will stick with you for life.

It's really not that bad, but I couldn't eat dinner after my first "bowel run" and I'm officially a vegetarian again. If I've learned anything after three weeks of Autopsy service, it's that I would rather run the bowel myself and not miss anything than get help and have something missed.

 

[gbwillner]

I'm with Mindy, every autopsy is a mystery and it is fascinating, strange, and incredible that we have the opportunity to dissect a whole human being. There are very few people who dissect embalmed cadavers, and even fewer of us privileged enough to seek the cause of illness and death when medicine falters.



It's really not that bad, but I couldn't eat dinner after my first "bowel run" and I'm officially a vegetarian again. If I've learned anything after three weeks of Autopsy service, it's that I would rather run the bowel myself and not miss anything than get help and have something missed.

I don't know... I've also just completed 3 weeks of autopsy and have 8 under my belt. I'm considering investing in a biological weapons-grade gas mask for running the bowels. It's key to make sure you ate lunch BEFORE doing the autopsy, because afterwards your chili is going to look and smell like diarrhea. I also find myself looking at people walking down the street and I picture them dead on the autopsy table... not very pleasant.

... no nightmares yet, but I'll let you know when they start

 

[Arctic Char]

I don't know... I've also just completed 3 weeks of autopsy and have 8 under my belt. I'm considering investing in a biological weapons-grade gas mask for running the bowels. It's key to make sure you ate lunch BEFORE doing the autopsy, because afterwards your chili is going to look and smell like diarrhea. I also find myself looking at people walking down the street and I picture them dead on the autopsy table... not very pleasant.

... no nightmares yet, but I'll let you know when they start

yep. i had the hardest time with - of all things - shrimp. i came home from work one day and started in on some shrimp cocktail my old lady had in the fridge, and i gagged, spit it out and then didn't eat any meat for weeks on end (i am a major carnivore usually). i don't know what it was about the shrimp, maybe the fleshy component of it, who knows?

but i also look at people in public sometimes and wonder . . . it hasn't really bothered me, but if a lay person heard me speak aloud the things going through my mind, i would probably be locked up.

 

[Mindy]

I also find myself looking at people walking down the street and I picture them dead on the autopsy table... not very pleasant.

Well, I do not picture live people on the table...BUT, for many many years to present time, I envision what people look like on the inside based on what is on the outside. Fatty livers, large hearts, athero...

My mom particularly finds this to be a very nerve-wracking habit, telling me to "cut that out" if I even glance at someone for unrelated reasons.

Another factoid is that while I do all of my own evisceration (minus sawing the head & stripping dura), I am very selective about when I run bowel. Since we eviscerate organ by organ, my method of removing the bowel is to transect at ligament of treitz and with a scalpel separate the mesentery from the bowel, leaving the small & large intestines attached, then dissect rectum low in pelvis. I then "peak" at certain parts of the bowel, including opening up the duodenum in situ, and a few cuts along the length of the gut. I then run my hand along the entire length to avoid missing any masses (or condoms filled with drugs!) I know that I miss small polyps, but I can live with that. If no masses and no blood in the lumen, I do not run the bowel.

I became a six-year no-red-meat-eater in med school as well, because of an arterial tree I dissected out of a corn beef brisket! Happily, I am back to eating red meat!

Back to the point, though... As pathgrrl says, there it is simply amazing to be able to see human anatomy and pathology in the way I am able to at an autopsy. It remains mindboggling that (many) others do not feel the same way.

Mindy

 

[gbwillner]

Back to the point, though... As pathgrrl says, there it is simply amazing to be able to see human anatomy and pathology in the way I am able to at an autopsy. It remains mindboggling that (many) others do not feel the same way.

Mindy

Yeah, I've already got some great cases... Autopsy is great when you call the medicine team and they say, "we have no idea WTF happened to that guy- he looked fine one minute and then he crashed!" and it's your job to solve the mystery. Unfortunately, for every such case there are 3 really boring ones where the ACOD is obvious from the Hx and we're only doing it because the family requests it or because a nurse somewhere accidentally asked the family to sign the form without any need.

Back to the nightmares... I officially had my first autopsy dream last night... I was visiting my parents and my mom cooked dinner- it was a boiled cow heart. I have no idea what a cow heart looks like so it really was a human heart. I could see juices in the ventricles... I told my mom that I was sorry but I couldn't eat because I have to look at these things all day. I don't think it qualifies as a nightmare but still pretty disturbing.

 

[Arctic Char]

Yeah, I've already got some great cases... Autopsy is great when you call the medicine team and they say, "we have no idea WTF happened to that guy- he looked fine one minute and then he crashed!" and it's your job to solve the mystery. Unfortunately, for every such case there are 3 really boring ones where the ACOD is obvious from the Hx and we're only doing it because the family requests it or because a nurse somewhere accidentally asked the family to sign the form without any need.

Back to the nightmares... I officially had my first autopsy dream last night... I was visiting my parents and my mom cooked dinner- it was a boiled cow heart. I have no idea what a cow heart looks like so it really was a human heart. I could see juices in the ventricles... I told my mom that I was sorry but I couldn't eat because I have to look at these things all day. I don't think it qualifies as a nightmare but still pretty disturbing.

i had a recurring nightmare about this one body. totally benign, not a grotesque case at all. the patient had been brought off of a fishing boat after being dead for days (diabetic), and his upper lip was fixed, pushed on one side up against his nose, exposing his teeth in a mummy-esq fashion. that didn't really creep me out at the sight, but the image recurred in my dreams, and it was associated with intense fear. wild.

 

[gbwillner]

i had a recurring nightmare about this one body. totally benign, not a grotesque case at all. the patient had been brought off of a fishing boat after being dead for days (diabetic), and his upper lip was fixed, pushed on one side up against his nose, exposing his teeth in a mummy-esq fashion. that didn't really creep me out at the sight, but the image recurred in my dreams, and it was associated with intense fear. wild.

Speaking about autopsy... I just got hammered today with three cases- the last one coming at 4 PM.... I will be here all night folks...

 

[engineeredout]

In a Dutch oven, brown brisket in oil on both sides over medium-high heat; drain.

Dutch oven hahaha. I feel like a dirty **** for actually knowing that that means.

 

[djmd]

Dutch oven hahaha. I feel like a dirty **** for actually knowing that that means.

A dutch oven?

or did you think there wasn't really something call a dutch oven?

 

[docbiohazard]

This man knows his way around a Dutch Oven:

DBH

 

[Mindy]

OMG, I can't stop laughing at DJMD's post...

Mindy

 

[DavidRobidoux]

Hello everyone, I've been accepted to medical school and will be starting next month. Path is one of the specialties that I'm considering. Like the OP, my primary concern is the "gross factor" associated with decomp autopsies. I'll be okay with any visual grossness, but the smells of death will certainly get to me. I get really nauseous, and sometimes vomit when I smell nasty things. Is wearing a mask during autopsy allowed?

 

[djmd]

Is wearing a mask during autopsy allowed?

Yes (lot of people do as standard universal precautions), does it block the smell? no.

Most autops don't smell that bad... and you do get used to it.. (sort of)


Oh and thank you Mindy.. I'm going to take that as a compliment..

 

[gbwillner]

Hello everyone, I've been accepted to medical school and will be starting next month. Path is one of the specialties that I'm considering. Like the OP, my primary concern is the "gross factor" associated with decomp autopsies. I'll be okay with any visual grossness, but the smells of death will certainly get to me. I get really nauseous, and sometimes vomit when I smell nasty things. Is wearing a mask during autopsy allowed?

The best you can do is cover up the smell with something else... the worse thing you typically get is the poop smell from running bowel. If you are used to cleaning diapers it probably won't be much worse. Every now and then you'll get a stinky one... the bad stuff is on forensics, which you typically don't have to do much of.

As far as smell goes... the smell of death will be prevalent in other specialties as well. Surgery comes to mind- infected wounds are putrid (this is bringing up bad memories) and the SICU SMELLS OF DEATH. The EC will also be filled with drunk bastards who defecate on themselves. Medicine has its share as well. Prepare yourself!

 

[combatwombat]

A doctor afraid of dead bodies is like a dentist afraid of halitosis.

 

[Mindy]

It DEFINITELY was a compliment DJ.

You know, now that it was mentioned, bad smells from living people are indeed a LOT worse than bad smells from dead people. JMO

Mindy