Meeting a body

This week, as I have another 3 weeks off before beginning placements, I asked one of the pathology lecturers from my medical school if I could shadow her and get some experience of the specialty.

Contrary to populer belief and silent witness, Pathologists don't solve crimes. But they do sometimes solve mysteries.

During my 2 days as a shadow pathologist I spent a lot of time looking down a microscope at potential skin and breast cancer samples, I sat in on a skin cancer and renal transplant meetings, and (most memorably) I observed a post-mortem!

The pathologist doing the autopsy was a good and inclusive teacher talking me through the procedure, testing my anatomy and pathology knowledge and generally getting me involved. If you're not very keen on grizzly details, cease reading now perhaps...

Post-mortems are not very glamorous affairs, the pathologists remove each of the organs in turn and slice them to look for any signs of disease and a possible cause of death. Often everything from mouth to the other end of the gut is removed in one piece and viewed as a system. For me a personal hilight (if you like that sort of thing!) was to finally see in the flesh and hold my first brain (for reference, the brain in the photo is not a real one!!)

Once they're done they organs are returned to the body (usually in blue plastic bags!) and the person is sewn up to be returned to their families. The pathologist informs the coroner of the main cause of death (and any other related factors that may have indirectly contributed).


Whilst the topic of pathology is hugely interesting (and hugely important, linking in with all parts of medicine), I think the day-to-day life of a pathologist is not for me. I would miss the patient contact ..... and probably have less friends too!