"Nobody makes pies of people": I work as a pathologist
A DOCTOR WHICH IS ALMOST NEVER BEEN CLAIMED - so can be called a pathologist. Like other professions associated with death, this work is surrounded by many fears, myths and stereotypes. We talked with the pathologist and balm Anastasia Immortal about work, black humor and about the attitude to death. In the text there are descriptions of what happens to the body after death, therefore we advise you to soberly assess your strength.
Interview: Ellina Orujova
I am thirty years old, I live in the suburban town of Korolev. I would not say that I dreamed of becoming a pathologist, I just had a penchant for medicine and examples before my eyes: my great-aunt — a doctor, a husband with whom we have known since childhood — a military physician. She studied at the Medical Faculty of St. Petersburg State University - they drove us to the morgue, this is a mandatory practice. We all prepared for this, most of all were afraid of disgrace. I was told by seniors not to eat all day before going, and to take along paper bags. I'm not sure that I experienced some kind of shock, everything went smoothly.
After university, I worked in an ambulance as a toxicologist and resuscitator, and then returned to my family in Korolev. Moving from St. Petersburg was stressful, and the work was nervous, I wanted something quieter. A job in the morgue, as a rule, there is always - there are not enough hands. Plus, I was always interested in histology (the science of the structure of tissues. - Note ed.), and our work is not only an autopsy: often biopsy materials are sent to us for research (a procedure in which a tissue section is taken from the body for research. - Note ed.), for example, in case of suspicion of cancer, that we investigate them and confirm or deny the diagnosis. In the town near Moscow, not so many people die, but the tests are constantly sent. Sometimes it happens on a shift that there are no dead and there are plenty of tests.
The work schedule is standard: I work for five days, I rest for two, plus periodically I go to work with a balm machine. We get about 18 thousand rubles, so I am moonlighting with a balm machine.
About the work of the pathologist
I had already studied at the morgue exactly what needs to be done, but the basic knowledge was even before that: the fundamentals of autopsy were taught at the university. In addition, when I was working as an ambulance doctor, we had a collective autopsy. They are conducted when there are questions about the death of the patient, when they are suspected that the medical staff are guilty. In such a case, a team that has to do with this is assembled, the pathologist makes an autopsy to establish the exact cause of death. If it turns out that the employee made a mistake, he is reprimanded and sent to teach what he did not complete.
We do not receive the bodies of victims of crime, we work with those who died in hospitals, died in an accident, died at home, and there is no suspicion of a criminal case. If a crime is suspected, I am sending the body for a forensic examination. Once it happened - it turned out that the person was strangled and then hanged to imitate suicide.
The pathologist's duties include a mandatory autopsy to establish or confirm the causes of death: when a dead person is sent to me, he usually has a diagnosis. There are still cases when death comes suddenly, and only I can find out why the person died - the doctor did not see him alive. I do not open the body only in obvious cases, for example, when a person has a cancer.
I decided to embalm more out of respect for the dead and their relatives - I wanted a man to look better after death
The autopsy goes like this: first we make a cut on the skin from the neck to the pubis, push the skin apart, bite the chest with special forceps-saw around the perimeter and remove it. It happens that we extract individual organs - then we don’t touch the chest. Affected organs are seized so that they can be examined, examined, what has changed in them and what these changes have led to. Then we collect everything and sew it up; we put special materials in place of the extracted organs so that the stomach does not fall down and does not stick to the spine. The picture does not bother me in any way, but the smell of caked corpse blood smells disgusting. Neither spirits, nor anything else will help - you need to either use a respirator, or “sniff”, that is, get used to it.
The strangest case I encountered in practice: a young guy climbed over the fence, jumped off a small height, got up, laughed, and then fell and died. I had to think very seriously. It turned out that the reason is in the thymus gland, or thymus, - this organ is responsible for the production of hormones, and after adolescence, it gradually begins to dry out. The guy was removed this gland after some disease - when he jumped from the fence, hormones “jumped”, and his heart simply could not stand it.
Morally difficult when we receive children with leukemia. But it is unpleasant when stale corpses arrive, so-called medical mummies, and also drowned people or people who hanged themselves. Those who committed suicide look very unpleasant. I still can’t get used to it, it’s not for the faint of heart: they have a certain expression, eyes that have come out of orbits, furrows from a rope, an act of defecation, froth from the mouth, vyplavlennaya language. When you work with them, no, no, yes, and you ask questions about life and death: "Why did not you live, what is it?"
I meet a lot of relatives who do not believe in the death of loved ones. I will not say that the reaction of someone in this case is very different: they are shaking hands, asking why a person is cold. It seems to some that a person could not die from pressure or stroke, this is some kind of stupidity, the mother was definitely killed. I thank God, I have not met the parents of the dead children.
About embalming and special customers
I decided to embalm also out of respect for the dead and their relatives - I wanted a man to look better after death. Relatives go to the morgue and say: "Well, so what, how will it be? We did not want a closed coffin." Usually a make-up artist comes in and tries to return to the dead person a familiar look, but they have different specifics of work. I wanted to master the art of embalming (the method of preserving bodies after death. - Note ed.). Since this profession is not very common, we have only one school of balms - in St. Petersburg. I did not go to these courses, but now I am preparing to go to their branch, which will soon open in Mytishchi.
Relatives bring a photo of a person during his lifetime, and I try by all possible means to create the feeling that he is just sleeping. I can "correct" the deformation of the skull with a special mastic. The deceased appears dead spots, and I change the complexion, tint the lips, mark the eyebrows - here the dead are not much different from the living. In addition, the tradition of kissing the dead man goodbye is strong - and so that people do not faint, I try to make the dead look good for the last time.
Once there was a man about whom the relatives said: "In life he was a goth, let him remain so." So we painted the nails in black, made a grim make
One day a man came to us, who crashed on a motorcycle that his relatives decided to bury in an open coffin. The dead man had no part of the skull, a short haircut. I tried to restore his head with mastic - it was very hard, but it seemed to work out.
We do not have a special make-up - we just use the most resistant tonal means, we do waterproof makeup. We use professional cosmetics, top 3: MAC, NYX and Yves Saint Laurent. We make a neat pastel manicure, and the elderly simply trimmed - after all, this is not a party. I usually use a colorless or pinkish lacquer to have a feeling of life in a person.
Once there was a man about whom the relatives said: "In life he was a goth, let him remain so." So we painted our nails black, made a dark make-up. An elderly woman asked her relatives to bury her in a tear-out dress and make-up with bright red lipstick, as she loved in her youth. Make-up was not easy to do - it contrasted very much with the complexion. It looked, of course, strange - but such a desire, what to do.
About the reaction of people and attitudes towards death
Everything was so strange in my family that there was always a place for black humor at the table. I asked my parents: "Well, can't you eat without it?" Therefore, they treated my choice with understanding. There is no grave cold from me, I do not intimidate friends that we will all die - on the contrary, they are interested. Some friends say “Horror! How can you!”, Constantly trying to pull out to see comedies - they think that I have a dark life. A husband, a military physician, this work seems to be quiet and peaceful. Some friends advised to rest, and then suddenly that "it will happen with the head."
Among the medical staff there are few sexists, especially in the morgue. We have a lot of women among pathologists, and among paramedics, and among laboratory technicians. In my team, everything is more or less ordinary, no one makes pies of people - quiet, modest guys. Very often, doctors go to work in the morgue, when they want to relax from the living.
When people come in with serious injuries after an accident, we try to joke in order to defuse the situation. We pin each other - someone has become ill, and does not want to take sick leave, and we say: "Let's get sick, otherwise you will not be a doctor here." One of my favorite black jokes: "Life is a deadly sexually transmitted disease."
When asked whether it is not terrible to be alone with the corpses, I remember my great-aunt, who also worked in the morgue. Once, when I was very young, I asked her: "Elsa, are you not afraid to stay with the corpses?" And she replied: "I am sixty years old, I have seen and fear living people so much. Why are the dead afraid of something?"
I am calm about death. I know that it is very hard to die with dignity, you can live as you please, but in death we are all equal. But I am sure that if I die in this city, my body will be in safe hands. After three years in the morgue, I became less demanding and expecting from people. When my husband and I have children, we will try to gently explain to them that anything can happen and mother prepares people for the final journey. But I think that in time I will return to work in an ambulance. I would like to live still alive - and my patients in the morgue will always wait, they are not in a hurry.
PHOTO: LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS - stock.adobe.com (1, 2, 3)
