Random side notes:
- pathology residents must conduct min. 50 autopsies for program completion
- tissue/organ donation helps ~80 people
- patient's spouse/family must agree to research use of samples/tissues (not opt-out)
- If you're an organ donor, those are removed immediately after death (as in prior to arriving at the autopsy station)
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So I get an email saying 'yo we're starting like... now' or something similar. I get down there, fix myself with the "keep me sanitary and disease-free" garb, and then start asking the director questions about the process. He said there's not a specific step-by-step process for an autopsy, though the process has generally the same order of steps, working outside inward so as to preserve all body parts. As I approached the body, I took gradual glances at the body and eeeeeeeased into view. Being my first autopsy observation (obvi), i wasn't sure how my nerves and stomach would handle it.
Go! So they start and surprisingly enough don't do a full recap of the patient case or anything (as in 'this guy has _______, with ________... and he was _________). Communication fail. This patient had Spina Bifida, which turned into a urinary tract infection; however, the doctors weren't sure what the actual cause of death was. After measuring the scars, pupil size, and limbs, the residents began making incisions (taking turns) and pulling back the skin. To preserve the appearance for the viewing/funeral, the incisions are made in a minimally invasive manner. Then the blood/fluid was soaked up and the bones were cut apart. To keep myself together, I made sure to only view one part of the body at a time, say the arm, chest, or pelvic area. Something about the head that was a little tougher to view, so I limited looking there... perhaps the eye factor.
So the residents proceed with the cutting and resection of various tissue samples and organ removal. Each component is put in a separate bag or bucket for analyses. The toughest parts to remove were all of the organs TOGETHER-- (ridic!) as well as the testicles. Once the organs were removed, though, the process went rather quickly, because they were divided among the residents (and attending) for analyses. The only part that I had to turn away for was at the very end when one resident removed the brain (that's a G-rated adjective). He then casually put it in a bucket of formaldehyde like it was no big... right near the end of the procedure, the attending handed the heart my way and instructed me to hold it and i declined. Figured i needed to take this one step at a time. And let's be honest-- today I had skipped steps 2-76.
The most incredible takeaways from my autopsy observation:
- the residents have mastered the process like a car assembly line
- there is no timeout concurrent with the analyses and minimal information exchange as they investigate
- i find the whole process extremely intriguing, notably in how similar the process apparently is regardless of the case complexity/condition (gunshot wound or shortness of breath)
- how much "background info" there is from simply analyzing someone's organs
- how beneficial organ donation is to other people (you should seriously consider being a donor
