In Moderation
Providing health, nutrition and fitness advice in moderate amounts to help you live your best life.
Rob: Co-host of the podcast "In Moderation" and fitness enthusiast. Rob has a background in exercise science and is passionate about helping others achieve their health and fitness goals. He brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the show, providing valuable insights on topics such as calories, metabolism, and weight loss.
Liam: Co-host of the podcast "In Moderation" and new father. Liam has a background in nutrition and is dedicated to promoting a balanced and sustainable approach to health and wellness. With his witty and sarcastic style, Liam adds a unique flavor to the show, making it both informative and entertaining.
In Moderation
The Science Behind Autopsies: More Than Dead Bodies in Basements
Ever wondered what really happens when a forensic pathologist investigates death? Forget everything TV shows have taught you about dark basements and creepy examiners. The reality involves bright laboratories, extensive medical training, and meticulous scientific procedures designed to uncover truth.
In this candid conversation, forensic autopsy technician Julia pulls back the curtain on a profession shrouded in mystery. With five years of hands-on experience and advanced degrees in forensic science and pathogenesis, she reveals the systematic approach to examining the deceased—from external documentation and X-rays to the careful examination of internal organs. The process isn't just about determining how someone died; it's about preserving dignity, identifying potentially genetic conditions that might affect surviving family members, and providing closure for those left behind.
Julia tackles controversial topics head-on, including the debate between medical examiner versus coroner systems, the challenges of maintaining professional integrity when facing pressure from law enforcement, and the severe national shortage of qualified forensic pathologists. With only about 500 practicing nationwide, this critical field struggles to meet demand while maintaining rigorous standards. She shares surprising insights about health too—like how skinny people can have severely clogged arteries while larger individuals might have pristine cardiovascular systems.
Throughout our conversation, Julia's passion for education shines through. Whether explaining why "cardiac arrest" is a useless cause of death, describing her experience with organophosphate poisoning from a case, or revealing how forensic professionals use humor to cope with daily exposure to mortality, she demystifies a field that touches us all yet remains poorly understood. Follow Julia on social media @MyForensicPath as she works toward medical school and continues advocating for truth in death investigation.
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Oh yeah, so the one thing that people don't understand about forensic pathology is that it is where medicine and the law meets. So it's not just us, like you know, creepy weirdos in a basement like they show in movies and we're in the dark with, like one of those crappy lamps from the 80s. Like you know, no gloves digging in a dead body that's not what it's like. Dead body, that's not what it's like. There's a very extensive process. There's a lot of science and stuff that goes into it and what we're doing and why we do different things, and so that's often something people will say to me, even other, like physicians that I've shadowed and whatnot. They're like oh, you have to go to medical school in order to be a forensic pathologist. And I'm like yes, you do in fact need to know what you're looking at when you open up a body. Like there's.
Speaker 3:You can't just cut people open with a chainsaw.
Speaker 1:No, apparently not I mean, you can, you just might get in trouble. Yeah, you can, but that was like I actually had this conversation, because I recently made um like a video and then a post on tiktok or whatever and an instagram where I talked about different misconceptions about the field, and one of them was that people thinking that we don't go to medical school or that things are different and you can just show up and do whatever. And I had someone you know you get trolls in the comments all the time and this person claimed to be an anesthesiologist who's married to a forensic pathologist and said that, like most states don't actually require that you have any kind of medical background and coroners just do whatever they want. And I was like, no, so states have laws about these things. Um, you have to be very careful, and that's not to say that there isn't corruption. I am sure that there's different areas where people kind of just do what they want, but it's also due to, like, such a severe shortage and lack of resources that you kind of have to do what you got to do, and whether that be not taking cases that we should be doing or people doing, you know, like back basement, autopsies or something like things happen but it's not legal.
Speaker 1:And this person went off the handle.
Speaker 1:I was like I'm pretty sure you're actually like 15 year old boy in your parents' basement who, you know, thinks that bones is real life, but it's not. And so they ended up blocking me because I was like yeah, I'm not having this conversation with you if you're just going to freak out at me in my comment section. And so then they got upset and left. But there were a lot of people where I shared like a small screenshot of it on my story and obviously you know TikTok comment section leaves out a lot of context. So I had some friends message me and be like what are we talking about? And say, once I explained it to them, they understood. But even then, like there's a lot of like back and forth between even just different forensic pathologists and it's like this law varies by state and how it works and what they do. But it's purposely written to be vague because we're also trying to accommodate for, like, pathologist assistants who can also do autopsies. They just may not be able to do the final sign out, stuff like that.
Speaker 3:I was going to ask about them because they don't necessarily need, like you know, to go to med school or anything, right, like the assistants, right. So maybe people are thinking of them and they're like, oh so they don't need a degree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that was what I had originally thought. With this first person it was not the case. But with my other friends that I was talking to, that's what they were stumped on. So when I explained that I wasn't really talking about that, then they were on board. But yeah, so they do.
Speaker 1:I think it's like a two, two and a half year program, it's kind of like a master's degree, and so they go, but then they can either do forensics or they can do surge path, and in forensics it's still a little like taboo to not be a forensic pathologist but to be a path assistant.
Speaker 1:But I think within like the next 10 to 15 years they're going to be more popular because there's such a shortage that it's going to be out of desperation that we need to bring more. And I think they have such a unique skill set too that like why would we not want to use them more if we could? Especially like they're great for natural cases and like accidents and things like that, because at the end of the day they can't do the official sign out, so they can do everything else, and then they basically bring the report to a forensic pathologist or a pathologist and they're like here you go and then they'll look it over and then sign off, and I think this kind of varies by state too. But then even with like homicide investigations, there's like a specific way in which they can be involved, but I don't think that they can testify, so then they have to have the forensic pathologist be more involved in that way if it gets called to court. But don't quote me on that, because I'm sure it's going to change soon.
Speaker 3:You're talking about forensic pathologists and them discussing with each other. I'm curious what are the hot button issues among forensic pathologists that they argue about all the time? Like no, it shouldn't be this way, it should be that way. Or like what's the drama in the forensic pathologist? I don't think many people have a grasp.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, because what this is going to be really funny for me to talk about, because I'm always like on my social medias trying to preach about how like great forensic pathology is. But oh, there's drama. There's always drama, no matter where you go, it's going to happen. But some of the biggest things are going to be medical examiner versus coroner states and we have some mixed states. But then even then there's some people that are like coroner system should be abolished and other people are like but no, our coroner system is great kind of a thing, can you?
Speaker 3:tell us on like the difference between those.
Speaker 1:So medical examiners are going to typically be forensic pathologists and in some states they're allowed to also just be any physician, maybe even just a basic pathologist, or they can be whoever, and they're more akin to like a death investigator. And so we have I'll explain it this way there's two different things. There's the death investigation side of the death care industry and then there's like the autopsy side. So these things are going to be separate. So medical examiners in a lot of states are also going to be the same people who are doing their autopsies, because they're also forensic pathologists, so they're able to do the whole kind of process. And then with coroner states it depends.
Speaker 1:So, like where I worked, we had jurisdiction in three different states because we were like kind of a weird little corner and we're more rural, so we have less cases. So we have where we're located in our state. We cover the eastern half and then I think like eight counties in the state below us and then 10 counties in the state that's off to the side. I'm probably in the Midwest area, but I don't want to give away exactly where I am just yet, but like where I am at, you have to. So there's the regular coroners and then there's also like the forensic specialist, who's like head coroner, essentially for the whole state.
Speaker 3:So we don't have a foreign king, foreigner king corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah the king, and so those ones have to be a forensic pathologist, but the other corners can literally be anyone.
Speaker 3:So I've met coroners who were like ex-cops, who and, and in my state they're all appointed and they just have a thing for dead bodies, and that's what they signed up for.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, apparently.
Speaker 2:That's not worrisome at all.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that even brings in more to this drama discussion that we'll get into, and that's why a lot of people don't like the coroner system. But yeah, so where I'm at, our coroners will be appointed. But yeah, so where I'm at, our coroners will be appointed. But in most other states they're elected. Person doesn't know what goes into an investigation or what's going on, so how do you know that that person is going to do a good job? And so, yeah, I've met coroners here who are, yeah, like I said, ex-cops. Some are morticians. And then there is a few that are like 22 years old, just graduated college and had like a criminal justice degree. Yeah, and so they have. They've never even seen an autopsy before, and so they would come into view with me.
Speaker 3:This has got to be a Fox show. Like the first day is like a corner and you're like figuring it out. You're like no, no, don't grab that, don't grab that, like that will explode.
Speaker 1:Every time I do like, oh, this is your first autopsy. I give them warnings for different things because I'm like okay, this is a bone. Saw, we use it to cut bones. So if you're gonna pass out, go and sit down now. Or like, we draw vitreous from the eyes, so I'm going to take this needle and I'm gonna put it in an eyeball. If you're gonna pass out, please go sit down, kind of a thing. But yeah, and so that's the thing with coroners in a lot of places they're not physicians and when it comes to death investigation, let's say, someone passes away and it's reported, it's going to be sent to like that coroner and they're going to come out and they're going to look at the case and go, yeah, this needs an autopsy or no, this doesn't need an autopsy, we'll just sign it out.
Speaker 3:And so basically it's like so if, like, the head's gone, they're like, yeah, we got what happened, we don't really need to look into this any further, or something depends, because there's also laws on which cases need an autopsy versus which ones don't, and so okay.
Speaker 1:So what if it's?
Speaker 3:like suspected of, like foul play, like how do you like decide you like, oh, this person might have, might have been killed, I don't know. Let's look into it Like who decides?
Speaker 1:So that would be the coroner, okay, and so that's the frustrating part that people are upset about is because you know this 23 year old new grad who hasn't seen an autopsy before and doesn't really have experience. How are they supposed to go and decide whether something is suspicious, whether it was an accident, whether it's a natural case, because they can sign out on things that are natural, so like heart attack let's say yeah, yeah. So let's say, like my grandpa, Joe, you know 75 years old, yeah he is at home comfortably, has like a laundry list of medical problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do a wellness check and he's not alive anymore. And so you show up and you're looking around there's nothing suspicious, like no one broke in, things like that. Then you're kind of more comfortable to be like, yeah, this is a natural death. We can just write it out as such.
Speaker 3:But what if they find somebody at like a table with a box labeled poison and they have like a spoon and a bowl and they're like just keeled?
Speaker 1:over. That would be like I think this is foul play. Yes, coroner, call in someone. Yep, and so that's when they would decide that there needs to be an autopsy. And so then for us specifically, they would bring it to our facility and we so like when they come in, the whole process of an autopsy is we start with an external evaluation. And so I kind of describe it to people like you're making a burrito.
Speaker 3:You ask them about their ideas and what they want to do in the afterlife and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you sit there and you talk with them. I did sometimes talk to the bodies occasionally.
Speaker 3:I mean, I feel like you have to Come on. I would totally talk to a body if that was my job.
Speaker 1:Usually, too, it would be, you know, if I'm doing stuff because you get used to doing a job and so sometimes I'd move around and I'd like accidentally hit them, or like drop something. Yeah, I'd be like oh my God, I'm so sorry, joe Like.
Speaker 3:I didn't mean to do that Things like that. I think that's totally normal. I talk to myself. I'm definitely going to talk to yes exactly.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I get made fun of, but I think it's normal.
Speaker 3:I'm just going to put that out. There we talked to dogs and stuff. Why not a dead body? Neither of them understand what we're saying.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So yeah, no for an X-Turtle. Basically I describe it to people kind of like a burrito situation. So they come in a body bag. We start with pictures. You're going to take a picture of them in the bag. They have the little tag on the zipper. If it's suspected of foul play they'll put evidence tape around the zipper too, because that tells us no one's been in the bag to mess with stuff during transport. So we'll take pictures of that to show it's all intact. And then we'll open it. And then we take more pictures, just as the way they are, and then, like that, when we start taking notes too, of like what the person's wearing, what you know personal property is on their body or in the bag, kind of a thing, and then you can start taking off clothes and then we do dirty pictures. So pictures as they are that way, and then you clean them up.
Speaker 3:And then you post them to your only dads yeah, and that's how you get the corners, that's how there's like oh, I'm totally in on this, I'm signing up for office.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's when they start planning, making their profile, and they get tips from other people that are there to figure out how they should run. But yeah, no. So we go through the process and then, once that is kind of done we've done the notes, the pictures we'll do an X-ray too. So we have a full body x-ray called the low docks, and so you can pull out this long table and you just roll them on there and then you scooch it on and it'll do a full body x-ray, or you can even adjust the setting so it'll do like just the head I gotta know, with the x-rays, have you ever looked at one and been like, oh shit, that's not supposed to like?
Speaker 3:do you have any stories that are just like that's not supposed to be in there? You know?
Speaker 1:so there's been. There was one time, um, where we had a case, and this was before we got our lodox. So we used to have like this really old, freaking, crappy ass x-ray with the tiny little cassette trays, and so I would have to do a full body x-ray using these little cassettes. So imagine me um, just for context, I'm like 5'4" okay, and I'm a petite person. I'm tiny and I'm rolling dead people who are upwards of like 400 pounds by myself to get x-rays. So imagine this tiny girl like whimpering and cramming x-ray plates.
Speaker 1:It's difficult, but there was one because we had no idea what had happened. This person had been burned, and so they came in. And we also worked with the FBI a lot, because where I'm at, there's a lot of reservations around us, and so the way that it worked is the FBI would be involved in certain cases that way, and so they were telling us about how they think they know who it is, but they're not sure. So we're looking for different things, and so I'm taking all these x-rays and then I pull up the one for the chest and I look at it giant, freaking wad from a shotgun like the whole thing.
Speaker 1:so yeah, and so it was close, because usually you know you get like um, the bird shot and stuff when you're further away and the shell like drops or whatever. No, the whole thing was there, and so we're like okay, so this wasn't an accidental fire, that just happened to occur.
Speaker 2:This person was dead, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so they were living, yeah. And so when I looked at that I was like that's not supposed to be there. And so then they all came over and looked at it, because at first I had no idea what it was. I was just like there's a big blob with some little things around it that should not be there, but it is, and I don't know what it is. And so we looked and I think the forensic pathologist was like oh, holy shit, like well, we know that this wasn't an accident anymore.
Speaker 1:So then we had to look at different things and, um, to identify them, we would get like dental records and stuff, but at that point in time we were kind of looking for a general guess as to who it might be, to limit it down to know who we should request records from. And so we actually looked for, um, the pants, to look at the button on the jeans because it's metal, so it survives the fire, and so we can see like this person who is missing was last known wearing these pants and we can match the brand, and that gives us at least a little bit of wiggle room. So that way we're not asking for dental records from like 70 different missing people from everywhere. We can be like okay, so we know it's this outfit that we saw from the person's picture that they have these pants, so at least we can narrow it down that way and then, if it still doesn't match up, that's when you would expand and like look at more. But uh, yeah, seeing, that was definitely freaky.
Speaker 3:Um, there was another time like swallow something like they swallowed, like something in there to hide, to like sneak it in somewhere and you're like oh, you didn't make bags of drugs.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, They'll do that. So there was one time where we thought we saw it and we were all like excited because we're like oh my God, we figured it out already Like you know what?
Speaker 1:it is, yeah, we're like holy shit. And then once we were looking closer and we got on the inside it was just gas and we're like oh, oh, damn, okay. Um, because that was like the story too, because usually when they come in the people will tell us kind of situation surrounding the death and like what was going on, what that person was involved in, so we kind of know what to look for generally we think they hit us something up their butt.
Speaker 3:Can you check?
Speaker 1:it out. There was one time I wasn't there for it, but my friend was telling me how there was a case where it was this old person who had a bright, blue, glittery butt plug in.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, that should show up on the x-ray.
Speaker 1:And so the forensic pathologist that was working that day, he is like a dad I even call him dad because he's just great. Like every holiday Cause I'm farther away from home. I'm originally from Michigan, so I've moved quite a ways to where I am now. So I don't have family to go to, so they'll have me over for like Christmas and Thanksgiving or whatever. Even though we don't really like fully celebrate Thanksgiving, we just like to have each other's company, especially when you're not working that day. So we're very close and so anything like that is a no go. So he just like he noted it but he pretended like it was not there. It was just like a no topic discussion. And so my friend nicolette, she's like well, do you want me to remove it?
Speaker 3:I'm assuming that's not what killed him.
Speaker 1:Must have been, yeah, yeah and because she was like do we put it with his personal property and give it back to his family? Like because families can be, obviously they're grieving, and when you're grieving you do and say weird things, and so sometimes you might think maybe we should throw this away, but then um, I don't know.
Speaker 3:If a relative of mine died with a glittery butt plug, I'd be like what a baller like that guy. Like they, they, they. Yeah, they were having fun right when they died there was.
Speaker 1:So the death investigators at our office. They're usually like police officers who are, you know, picking up extra hours and whatnot Some of them really great, and so I was close with a few of them because they really want to implement change in the system, which is what I appreciated about them, because I'm very critical of everything they do and I let them know that on a daily basis when cops come in Like there was one time someone had fuck 12 written on their knuckles and I held it up and I was like you see that, because I do, I just want you guys to know that it's there and they would like kind of laugh. Some of them might get a little more stingy, but I also don't care, because we don't work for police officers. Um, we give them our opinion and then they suck it up if they don't like it.
Speaker 1:Basically, and but this one guy brandon is his name he went to a scene and it was an older gentleman. Um walks in viagra bottles everywhere, everywhere, and like a bunch of them were empty, and he was like oh my god, he gets in sex toys all over the place and I think this person was probably like 75 or 80 and so he's like good for you still going after it you go and I was like I would have been laughing so hard because, like, heck yeah, do whatever you want, live your life.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, yeah, exactly. But oh my gosh, there's always like so many random little things and I think people also don't realize, like how much we end up knowing about you by the end because, like I get to go through your belongings I don't go through your phone, but like, if it's still on and they have it on them, I can see like messages and stuff pop up.
Speaker 1:Or, like I go through your wallet, I have to mark everything that's in your wallet and what you do and, like if there's anything that's like making you like, oh that's different, or like oh, one time we found someone who had several different ids with different names and we're like oh, so sometimes we'll make up like mini stories about them, just to like give them a little, like you know, context to what's going on. Things like that. Or some people carry around insane amounts of cash, like I think the most cash I've counted out was like three thousand dollars and I was like you just have that in your pocket.
Speaker 3:I wish you know business. I could see so much did they also have? Drugs in their body? No, they're probably not the ones carrying the drugs in their body. They're probably the ones that pay the other people to put drugs in their body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know on jeans how you have like that tiny little pocket that's like usually I think from yeah, oh yeah, we call it a drug pocket.
Speaker 1:And so when we take off pants, we're always really careful about it and you have to like pat the pockets to see if there's anything in there. And we always use the back of our hand on the outside to gently pat, because if there's something sharp or whatever, you don't want to like stab yourself or hurt yourself, so you kind of like gently feel. Then you take a peek inside to see and make sure, and then you can reach in and pull stuff out. And drug pocket is one that people often forget about because it's so small and most normal people don't store stuff in there. There's always something.
Speaker 1:And I found so many drugs in that pocket and I remember one time I had pulled something out and was like oh yeah, definitely drugs. It was just a little wad of paper. So I started slowly unfolding it and, yeah, as I unfolded it, it was just like a line of cocaine and I was like, there, we go Close that back up because it was just loose a line of cocaine. And I was like, there, we go close that back up because it was just loose. And so I was sitting there and I wasn't even wearing my face mask yet, like I think I just had it down around my chin, so I was like put that bad boy back up is hiding things in shoes common.
Speaker 3:I feel like that's got to be common, like people like hide stuff in their shoe, or do you not find? Do you not find I?
Speaker 1:found. I think we've had a few things like in people's boots, but it's usually just like they put their phone in there or whatever. I've never found anything crazy, but I do know based on like other stories I've heard that people do put stuff in their shoes.
Speaker 2:I feel like if I was hiding something, I'd put it in my shoe, I feel like that's the first place I'd go Right what I'm learning from this podcast is that I need to carry more interesting stuff on my person, in case I do.
Speaker 3:Yes, we love interesting stuff, but like if we were cool where would we hide stuff that's my question when would you put it?
Speaker 1:I don't even. I'm trying to think of like I don't even know. Usually people aren't like super creative with hiding things or like something common that you'll often hear. Like if someone's arrested and they find something like in their pants, they'll be like these aren't my pants, okay, so you just put them on and they're like yeah, I found them and I just put them on today, okay, who doesn't put on the first pair of pants they find out?
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, and for a long time I always thought that was ridiculous. And then I've also started working part-time at the emergency department here in town to get some more experience for, like, applying to med school and whatnot. And there are people who have showed up with no pants, and so I'm like you would be the person who would put on random pants.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if I didn't have pants and I found pants, I put on those pants.
Speaker 1:Might as well. Yeah, no, it's a very. There's a lot of interesting things.
Speaker 3:Have you ever gotten a body and they were alive? Have you ever gotten a body and they were alive? Have you ever gotten a body and they were like, oh, they just pop up.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, by the time they get to us, they're done Like, and at least if they're not dead, then they're dead after Because.
Speaker 3:I heard the story that like back in the day, like the graves, they'd have the little bell that was like above the grave, so that like if someone's alive they would put a string in there and pull the string so you're alive.
Speaker 1:and I'm like I figure now we're better at telling if people are actually dead or not, but like, yeah, I feel like it's possible, I don't know. Um, I think I've heard of stories of this happening in, like, other countries where maybe they don't have that same kind of advancement in technology yet. Um, or access to that technology I should also mention. But like here in the US at least we are pretty good about it and at least by time that they get to us we're going to know, because usually I think they're like cold and stiff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so yeah, I would say for us, because we were a smaller office, like people would be able to bring cases to us faster. So I think the soonest I've done an autopsy is like an hour after death, where they're still warm and it's really really weird to put my hands into like warm soup of intestines.
Speaker 3:Now that's. It's just weird that you're weird to like oh, a warm body, oh this is gross. I'm used to my cold dead bodies.
Speaker 1:So there was so funny story. So where I'm at is up north very, very cold and in the winter sometimes our facility didn't have good heating and I think it got down to about 62 in the back and I was freezing and I get cold very easily and then I have radons. So in my hands when I get too cold I can't move them anymore. I was so cold that the body was warmer than the outside environment. So I started to put my arms into the body to warm up because I was still working. But I was like I can just work like you're pulling a full on Star Wars.
Speaker 3:After he like, cuts open the dead.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm thinking, and I was like let me crawl in here real quick to warm up. I was like, let me just crawl right inside. I could probably curl up and fit in here. But I was like I got to make it work Because at the time when I was first hired I was one of like two or three other technicians, so I was doing most cases by myself only, and usually a lot of places will have a few different techs per case, so that way you can alternate different things.
Speaker 1:And then, as I worked there, we hired more and more people. But, yeah, sometimes I was like, well, I can't take a break right now. So I got to warm up any way possible, and other times, if I had time for it, like I would get a bucket of hot water where I could just stick my hands in there with my gloves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, normal stuff.
Speaker 1:But you know, sometimes you got to make things work.
Speaker 3:I know I get it. Does everyone who works in this field? Do they all have a dark sense of humor? I feel? Like it's a requirement If you're going to work with dead bodies, you have to have a dark sense of humor.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and like I always tell people with having dark humor, there's obviously a time and a place, but there's also a limit to what we do.
Speaker 1:So like I would say I can't speak for everyone because I haven't worked with everyone, but most people I would say we're not like making fun of the decedent. So anyone who's worried about that, we're not. Most of the time if someone comes in I'll be like oh my God, they have such pretty hair, they have really pretty eyes, things like that, because I like to be nice. But then we also have very dark humor where we will joke about things and that is something a lot of medical students are surprised about when they come to rotate with us. Is that like we're in the back, it's bright and it's big and clean, but then we're also laughing with each other and they're like I just expected it to be so serious and I'm like, well, it is a serious thing, it's I wasn't thinking you were laughing at the people like specifically, but more just like laughing at death because you're around it constantly, so you have to be able to just kind of laugh.
Speaker 1:Yes, and there's something I think.
Speaker 1:I made a video about this a while ago and I actually had a few people get really angry with me, so that's why I wanted to clarify that we're not laughing at the decedent right um, because, yeah, people, it's hard to talk about these things because there are a lot of people who do get very sensitive about it and it's one of those things like I get it because it's not easy. Nobody likes death. It's not fun, it's not exciting, it's not the best moment in everyone's day, like it's that person's worst day of their whole life and probably for that family at that time it is also that worst moment. And so when you're working in that for so long, if you just let yourself sit there in that sadness, like you're not going to make it.
Speaker 1:Exactly you have to keep going, and so, honestly, I quoted SpongeBob a lot when I was in the morgue.
Speaker 3:Um, and he's from SpongeBob. What do we?
Speaker 1:just like all of them, to firmly grasp it when I was trying to like teach new technicians.
Speaker 1:And sometimes because where I worked, we would hire undergrad students where they would come in and so they wouldn't have like any experience with it, but we wanted them to learn because they have an interest in forensic pathology. So I would teach them, and a lot of them. Obviously, when you're first working on autopsies, you're being very gentle because you still have this idea of like I don't want to hurt them, but I'm like no, you gotta you firmly grasp it and you pull, like we do blunt dissection for some things and so like when we make the y incision we'll go down and then you have to reflect so you can open up that space, and when you grab it, sometimes I'll like, just yeah a little bit and I'm like no, you gotta rip it like you pull and then you cut like through the fashion to protect us so in order to move, them.
Speaker 1:I feel like it's gonna take some doing yes, you gotta really muscle through it and like removing intestines too.
Speaker 1:Uh, that is something we would use like manual dissection for, unless it's a very sensitive area, then I'd pull out like scissors or something and go through it. But a lot of the texts techs, they would be really afraid. And one of my friends too that I'm close with when I was first teaching him, and I would tell him, like, grasp it and pull. He's like, ok, but do I pull out your strength? Or my strength, like how hard am I pulling? And I'm like, well, you don't want to rip it and make a mess, but you got to, you know, put some it out of there and um, so a lot of people have a hard time kind of working with that. So the firmly grasp it thing was always there. Or if they like didn't quite know, because there's a lot of colors, things blend in sometimes you don't know where the liver ends and where it, you know, starts the boundaries of it to cut around to get it out. So I would always go no, the lid, the lid, the lid, patrick, the lid moving around, yeah, um another lid.
Speaker 1:Patrick the lid. Yeah, another one was one time the forensic pathologist was trying to do part of a case on someone, an individual, who was smaller, and he couldn't get his hands in there and I was like you're big, meaty claws.
Speaker 3:I'm curious. So it's like OK, so like, let's say, like someone who's's like a fighter, like who's like a mixed martial artist, they'll look at people like differently, like, oh, they'll size them up to like you know, like would I be able to fight this person? Or something. Does working with dead people make you look at alive people different in any way? That's? Different just like you look. A lot people are like oh, I bet this would be that thing or like whatever, just something like that oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So one I say my special skills was I could always find the carotid arteries right away, so like right in your neck and I can see them on people Like I can look at myself and I know that they're right here, and then it branches down like that, and so whenever I meet new people, I always that's like my first thing I look at their neck and I'm like that's where your carotids are yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you, I can't see, but um no, it's. Those are things that I just like knew because I was so used to it, and then also another thing.
Speaker 3:If somebody came up to me and said that was like the first thing they said, I'm like we're gonna be friends. Well, you and I.
Speaker 1:We're gonna get along well if you're like your carotids are right there.
Speaker 3:I'm like I don't know anything about you, but I want to, so how?
Speaker 1:are you right? So my uh, the one forensic pathologist that I was talking about, he has some kids and when they were younger one of them was probably like six or seven years old they knew what he did. They always did, and I think they were. He said they were in the grocery store one time and like the news was on, like one of the little tvs because it was a smaller, local one, and it was talking about like someone who had passed away and this kid very loudly goes daddy, did you cut that guy? Well, pointing at the TV. And he goes stop, like we don't say that in public. They think I'm crazy now and I'm like well, to me, in this field you gotta be a little bit crazy. So yeah, Right Like.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, right like you have to be. You have to dark sense of humor, you have to be a little crazy.
Speaker 1:You gotta be a little weird. I mean like otherwise, yeah, like you said, you just won't make it. I I feel like it's a yeah. Something we will often say is you gotta have like a toe over the line into serial killer, so you can understand them but if you get your own foot there, then that's when things start, that's a problem.
Speaker 3:That's when you start taking home like the liver not telling anyone yeah, and that's when we're concerned, and that's when you get fired I'll be honest in like movies and video games, I'm like you know. It's probably the autopsy person. I feel like you know what. They're probably the killer right there too much access to the bodies. They know too much.
Speaker 3:They're too well prepared for this I always do will like joke around with my friends and be like, if you want me to, I can get rid of whoever's pissing you off like I I know what to do and they're like oh my god, no you, I feel like you'd be pretty good at getting away with murder because you understand, like, what people look for yeah, I like to tell myself that.
Speaker 1:And then, realistically, because I've had a lot of very random people when I tell them what I do, they'll be like, oh so you could get away with murder. And I'm like, okay, realistically speaking, no, probably not Okay.
Speaker 3:but for all the murderers out there who are listening to this, all the people who want to kill someone else, what would you tell them to avoid to get caught?
Speaker 1:Honestly, the biggest thing is going to be area dependent. If you don't want to get caught, you got to make sure you're in the right area, because they're and I'm not going to say which is better, because I don't want people to know, but there is a specific area you can go to where it's going to be easier to not get caught damn now I want to get caught right I know there was actually a forensic pathologist who wrote a book and in it he kind of described like the perfect murder and he got in a lot of trouble for it.
Speaker 1:No shit.
Speaker 1:So, I'm always careful about my stuff. I will often see people online who are like this is what you need to do if you want to commit the perfect murder. And I'm like wrong, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the like biggest things that I've seen is they're like if you inject potassium under the tongue, you can OD them on potassium. And I was like and I waited to hear their explanation, and they always get the explanation wrong because they'll be like well, potassium, when you die, it decreases very rapidly and so they won't know which is wrong.
Speaker 1:Right after you die, potassium will shoot up and it gets really high. So if you're like we kind of have a general understanding of where it should be, that it can be in the normal high range, but if you're injecting an insane amount of potassium in there to od someone, it's going to skyrocket and we're gonna be like there's something wrong with that. That doesn't match up, and so that's how we'll pay attention to those things. And then I always tell people too, you have to think about these things logically, like sure, you could get like a diabetic syringe and needle and whatever. Where it's really tiny, you can't really see the hole, but who is going to sit there and open their mouth and lift up their tongue so you can inject them.
Speaker 3:No one okay, fine, don't tell us the ways to get away.
Speaker 1:Tell us how, not to what not yeah, what are the ways that people say to kill people that you're like, oh no that shouldn't be doing that that one always makes me so mad, because I'm like, okay, you're not, I'm not gonna sit here and be like, oh, you know what, sure, let me just open my mouth wide while you come at me with a needle, because then they're also saying like well, the like inside the mouth, that kind of tissue heals really fast. I'm like, yeah, it does heal fast when you're alive yeah, when you're dead it doesn't work.
Speaker 1:The same way when you die, and so these things always kind of make me laugh and I think I've made videos about it in the past and so people would ask about it. There was this one guy who's a forensic pathologist now but like at the time he had just finished up his fellowship and I don't think he fully understood the context that I was talking about. So he's like, oh my gosh, like you guys can see, like the needle marks from a diabetic, like needle and whatnot. I'm like no, no, no, no. I'm saying obviously I'm going to fight back. So there's probably going to be a bunch of scratches in my mouth, a bunch of tears and holes like different things like that that you're going to notice because we look in the mouth we go in.
Speaker 1:we'll remove the neck block with the tongue attached so we can see all of that. Yeah, and so that's why, like, I have to know where the carotids are, because you don't want to cut those, because they need them for embalming when they go to a funeral home. So yeah, so I'll like like dissect it away from there and then you have to cut from underneath with a scalpel and like kind of make a little rainbow cut, and then I can reach my hand up and grab the tongue and pull it down, and so, like we get to see all those things.
Speaker 3:so I'm gonna tell so when there's like a like foul play thing, you're looking at everything, you're like we're taking it all apart to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to look at everything. Pretty much everything is going to be suspicious. And so, like when we get cases that come from the hospital, you know, let's say the person didn't die right away at the scene, and so the ambulance takes them in and they're trying to resuscitate this person. They've intubated them, they put in an NG tube, like all these different things. If that person passes away, we always tell them not to remove those, leave everything in the body as is, because we don't want to look at it and then think that something else has happened. And we also want to make sure that it was done correctly.
Speaker 1:And this was something I was actually teaching one of the emergency department physicians, because he didn't know why we had asked them to do that. And so I was like, yeah, you know, if you're intubating a person, we want to make sure you did it right, right and you didn't put it down the esophagus instead of the trachea, because that would be really bad and then they would die. Or, like for IVs, we always ask that they leave them in and we'll remove them, because if they take them out and they have all these little holes now we're starting to think that they might be a drug addict and now we're looking at toxicology closely and we want to make sure that we have everything as accurate as possible and so little things like that. We're very, very like. We look at everything to make sure, like I even. We roll them over to look at the back and, like I'm not kidding you, they will spread the butt cheeks and look at your butthole even like they do everything yeah like they're looking everywhere, and so we just want to make sure that we're not going to miss something that's really important, and there was one time like sparkly butt plugs
Speaker 1:is x-ray or that first depending right, yeah, um no, it's just like there's so many weird little things that people don't think about that. We're like oh yeah, we need to make sure that we've checked this, because then too, like, let's say, it goes to court and now you have to testify and the lawyer is going to be like well, you didn't look at their butthole now did you?
Speaker 1:and you're gonna be like well, another waste it got me there yeah, because now they're gonna be like well, it doesn't seem like you're a very good forensic pathologist, huh so they're looking for anything, just to like hit you on something you did wrong, so you did other things wrong, okay, yeah yeah, because we did one case a while ago where there was so much going on, so our office was also a teaching place and so we took on more cases that were like naturals, compared to other offices from like hospitals and things like that, where usually they would have just signed it out because you know they're so busy with like homicides that they don't have the time or the resources to do every single case.
Speaker 1:So we do more, which is really great because we get to do see a lot of different things. But we were so busy this day doing like seven or eight cases and with our small typical workload compared to that, usually we do like one or two cases a day. We were everywhere. So this one person you put them back in the cooler that I turned around and realized I was like, oh my gosh, we forgot to remove the neck and so we had to pull them back out and do that. And we were panicking because the funeral home was there like about to load them up and take them away, and the forensic pathologist was like, yeah, I don't want to like have this be something and turns out they choked on like a sausage or something and we didn't find it because we didn't remove the neck block with the tongue. And we're like, yeah, that's, that's a good point, like that would be really bad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm sure you see, Okay, well, since we do things here that are, like you know, about health and mostly alive people, which is like kind of our standard, like what do you? I'm curious, like what do you see from like dead people that you're like, hey, I see a lot of people die this way. Maybe don't like this. I keep seeing people dead from like falling coconuts no-transcript.
Speaker 1:But with forensic pathology especially, everyone has like their thing. So earlier I had mentioned, when we were talking, one of our forensic pathologists. He was very like health conscious about what he ate, how he eats it, like exercise that he gets in all that kind of stuff. So that's his thing, cause I think one of the major things that we always see is like some kind of heart cardiac condition.
Speaker 3:Right, I figured heart disease has got to be like way up there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, pretty much everyone over the age of like 55, 60 is going to have some kind of like atherosclerosis, like their vessels are going to be hardened, and so it's just so common, and so people don't realize that. And then one of the other things too is that, like sure, weight can factor in to a certain degree, but I have seen a lot of people who are my size who look extremely healthy, considered to you know, social media standards, um, who have like fully clogged arteries and their heart is like just a little weak sack that flops around Like they're. They have poor health. And then I've seen people who may be larger, who have really great arteries and a really great heart Like it. A lot of people don't understand that size doesn't really matter as much as they think it does.
Speaker 3:So we will use Wait, which thing are we talking about now? For what?
Speaker 1:For, like, general health, just in general, with your heart system.
Speaker 3:Oh, the heart system. Okay, got it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. Because, yeah, a lot of people are like oh, you're overweight, your arteries are probably clogged and your heart's going to fail, and it's like, depends on the situation, right, like just. And I think the biggest thing to the biggest takeaway is just because you're skinny does not mean that you're fully healthy, as people think, because that would be something where we would sign out. A case is like oh yeah, it was cardiac related and the family would be like but I don't understand, you know, they ran every single day, they exercise and they have this, and we're like, yeah, but it ultimately, in the end, didn't matter.
Speaker 2:And it could have been butter in their coffee every morning. Well, there's that, it's also just genetic.
Speaker 3:Some people just have, like, high cholesterol, no matter what they do. I've talked to people like I'm trying everything, I'm like you can do everything and it won't matter, because your body's like no, you suck, we're going to, we're going to take ourselves out.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and that's what people forget.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you need to take medication to lower your cholesterol or whatever. Like, get that shit checked. It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's why, like a lot of people think too just because we're mostly working with decedents and dead people that we never work with living people, but we still have to work with their families, and so one of the things that we actually do this was another forensic pathologist who told me this story. But, like we, when we draw toxicology, we're not just looking for like drugs in the system, but we're checking, like electrolytes and all these other things, but also we're testing for genetics. Uh, we want to see if they have a condition that is genetic, because if they have children, we can then go over to them and be like hey, actually you have this condition. So one of the friends of pathologists that I'm friends with online, he was telling me that he um had someone who passed away from a genetic condition that they found out then.
Speaker 1:So he called the family and was like just so you know, it's genetic, you guys should probably go and get checked that's actually really nice to like have that information yeah and so they did and these kids did have it and because they caught it so early, they were able to take care of it and have it managed, so they didn't have to worry about dying from it necessarily, because I think this person that was passed away didn't know that they had it. So now the family knows and it's something they can keep an eye on and work with. So I always tell people, you know, it's not just a dead people job, you also have to see what's going on, um, with the situation.
Speaker 1:We had a case of hantavirus a little while ago. Uh, that we did, um, and we were trying to figure out, like how they got it, because we went through a whole like differential and because we're confused, and then we found out that this person works on a farm and has, like this shed where apparently he they recorded getting bitten by a mouse or whatever it was that was in there, and so when we found out for sure that it was hantavirus, you know, the forensic fellow just went and talked to the family and was like, hey, just so you know, don't go into that shed, like unless you're all protected, like make sure we got to clear out the mice, because that is what happened and that's how this person died. So now the family can be proactive about taking care of themselves. So there's a lot of public health that goes like back in the day someone died.
Speaker 1:They're like, ah, whatever, just keep doing your thing and then like that family would die too, from the same thing like ah we don't really know miasmas and stuff um. One of my biggest pet peeves ever is um when people sign out the cause of death is cardiac arrest, because it's not a cause of death, so cardiac arrest.
Speaker 3:It's the stopping of the heart. Yeah, that's it, but like which we want to know.
Speaker 1:What made that happen? Right, Because every single time someone dies, their heart's going to stop. Wait, really.
Speaker 3:It doesn't just kind of keep going. Are you telling me you've?
Speaker 2:never cut into a body where the heart is.
Speaker 1:I know it's shocking, but I will tell you that people get really mad about this when I say it. I posted a video about this on tiktok and tiktok had to automatically put on anti-bullying protection in my comment section because people were so upset about it and I was trying to explain like like heart disease, can lead to the cardiac arrest right but, like it's not the yeah, the reason we don't want it is because it's not specific.
Speaker 1:So, like someone could die from a gunshot wound, their heart's still gonna stop. They're gonna go into cardiac arrest. They could have an illness or like a genetic condition or they could have been hit by a car, Decapitation and you write cardiac arrest.
Speaker 3:you're like, well, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and so there are a few things that kind of go with that, like cardiopulmonary arrest is kind of the same deal your lungs are going to stop working when you die. There are like things that are mechanistic part of death where every single person, their brain's going to stop functioning, they're going to experience anoxia, their heart's going to stop working their lungs are going to stop.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, yes, but like those things are just part of dying. So we already know that that happened and so I hate it. Because you'll see a lot of like news articles where they're like I think it was like with hulk hogan or something too just past use. They were like, well, they said cause of death is cardiac arrest and I was like the fuck, they did no, and so then later I think they were like fully reported on it and whatnot. But you see it all the time and I usually what happens is like our forensic pathologists have to review the different death certificates that come through, depending on, like you know, jurisdiction and all that. But if one comes through that says cardiac arrest, we will be like denied, call the physician who signed this out and make them change it. And in bigger areas where there's so much going on, that might not happen.
Speaker 1:So sometimes families will have their deceased family members death certificate signed out with cardiac arrest as a cause of death and that's not accurate and it really sucks that it happens. But it's usually those people too. A lot of them do like to learn but then they get sad because now they don't know what the cause is. But then there are some people who are very adamant. Um, I was once called a coward in a white coat because the person was so mad at me. It turns out they're an er physician and they were so mad at me because I said that and I was like, well, number one, um, you can't do any of your job without the help of pathology, so but but I was like this is something they don't really teach other people in medicine how to fill out death certificates. You kind of just learn it on the job.
Speaker 1:And so then they, you know their elder physician has told them like, oh, we don't know what happened, just sign it out as cardiac arrest when that's not accurate and death certificates kind of go by like you assign them out based on your medical opinion. It doesn't have to be 100% true, because obviously you don't know unless you get an autopsy, and we can't autopsy every case. But people tend to get freaked out by that and so if they don't know, they just put cardiac arrest and they leave it like that. Yeah. And so that is my biggest pet peeve. Whenever I teach medical students I will always tell them if you put that on a desertion kit, I'm going to come back and haunt you Give me one second.
Speaker 3:My car's in the shop and they called to ask me something. I think I got to get something fixed or whatever. So, yeah, you got to keep going.
Speaker 2:That's okay Because, like we just rolled right into this, 50 minutes later you have been listening to Julia. I'm trying to think. I'm afraid to touch my computer in case anything else breaks, oh yeah yeah, yeah, Was it my Forensic Path? I believe yes.
Speaker 1:So I'm on Instagram and TikTok is my Forensic Path.
Speaker 2:And I think people have figured out by this point, you are a forensic pathologist.
Speaker 1:If you'd like to introduce yourself further.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm not a forensic pathologist quite yet, but I worked as a forensic autopsy technician for five years. I also got my bachelor's degree in forensic science and biology and then I got my master's degree in pathogenesis of human disease. So I'm working on applying to medical school. Given that, a certain bill was passed, it makes it quite hard for people who are low income like me and first gen like me to afford medical school now, so I've had to kind of put it on a little hiatus, but I'm going to get there one day. But I spent a lot of my time teaching medical students. I trained all of our new technicians, things like that. I've taught some forensic science classes, so I have a lot of passion for it and I want to get people more involved, help them understand, so they don't fall for the weird little myths that are spread online about it.
Speaker 2:Or in TV shows. Yeah, in TV shows especially oh my gosh, there's definitely a big rise of that true crime stuff and all the Dexter shows like that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the crime TV shows. I do enjoy some shows here and there, and I will be one of those typical people that calls out every inaccuracy when I'm watching it, because that's just how I am. But yeah, there's a lot of people who will see things and automatically think that that's how it works, when in reality it doesn't right, like they're cramming everything into an hour long episode. And some people are shocked when I tell them, like when we're testing for DNA, it can take up to a year to get a result back on that it doesn't take, you know, 20 minutes like it would in a TV show, and so it takes a lot of time.
Speaker 2:But what tv? What tv show has the scene that, like, pissed you off the most?
Speaker 1:that's a good one, I'm assuming it's from bones.
Speaker 3:It's gotta be from bones they're so actually funny story.
Speaker 1:One of our forensic pathologists knew one of the forensic anthropologists who consulted for an episode of bones, um, and then watched that episode later and that forensic pathologist or anthropologist was so embarrassed by how they portrayed it that she didn't even want to be associated with the show anymore.
Speaker 3:Um, but I drama, right, they gotta play it, they gotta create something crazy yeah.
Speaker 1:So like no forensic anthropologist is gonna be going out into the field and carrying a gun like an officer, like that just doesn't happen, right. And so, um, oh gosh, which show made me the most annoyed? I think there's a lot of little things. I would say I like the show dexter. Obviously it's like from the point of view of someone who is a killer, so it's different. But the way that they showcase forensics and the guy is like super creepy and weird and like in a bunch of episodes he'd be like, oh, this dead chick is so hot, look at her and I'm like, yeah, no, absolutely not. That definitely made me more annoyed.
Speaker 1:And like just in general, in forensics you specialize like in one thing. Even if you go into like forensic chemistry, for example, you're not doing all of forensic chemistry. You're typically doing one thing. So you're doing like seized drugs, specifically like cocaine, or you're doing just alcohol or like just these things. So when you see shows like NCIS, where poor Abby is doing every single thing in the show, that's not how that works. Like the labs are filled with different people trying to do different things and they're very careful about it.
Speaker 1:We can't have character development for 38 people, we need one and it's funny because a lot of people will actually tell me that I'm abby from ncis, because typically, like when I do my makeup, I have more of a goth kind of vibe going on, um, and I'll be like well, actually, uh, my goal is to be like Ducky, so I'm probably more like Palmer right now, but you got the spirit.
Speaker 3:Is there a higher percentage, of higher percentage of goth people in this field than any other field, do you think, or is that like it's one? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think more goth people tend to actually go for, like mortuary science. That's where I see it, and the funny thing is that a lot of the people that I have met in forensic pathology in some kind of way it's more like 60 to 70% of the people are actually very like bright and pink and happy and love colors kind of a thing, and then the rest of us are more of the alternative people, which is something that I did not expect, but it's like we're the stereotype for it, though, and so I'm like I fit in here. How did you get?
Speaker 3:here what show do you think? Does like the. Do you have a show that does like the best job that you're like? Oh, they do. I love their forensic pathology like they do great.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I don't know if I have a favorite.
Speaker 2:No they all kind of do the same shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the biggest thing is like every show kind of shows like if it's a hospital show especially, it's always one pathologist who's just doing everything, and in every single show they make them weird and creepy to some extent. Like my favorite show is Psych. I love that show so much and I love yeah, to some extent, like my favorite show is psych. I love that show so much and I love yeah, and I love the guy who plays like the forensic pathologist and that, but like nothing he does is good and so obviously you don't want to be like that. It's not a good representation, but I love the show, it's great, but yeah, no, there's a lot of shows really don't showcase it.
Speaker 2:Well. Have you seen Death in Paradise?
Speaker 1:I haven't.
Speaker 2:no, I have, I think I have See, I was going to get you to rate it, but if you haven't, seen it.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'll have to watch it and then I'll let you know. I think I have seen that.
Speaker 3:Isn't that like a British show or something?
Speaker 2:Or is that in the magazine? Yeah, it's like a tropical.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, like that was a good the first season. The second season was stupid. Don't watch that, but watch the first season Okay, first season only Good.
Speaker 1:I remember, I'll be sure to do that.
Speaker 2:Okay the show, because they actually changed the lead on the show. I don't like that.
Speaker 3:I get mad at that it's weird.
Speaker 2:The first it in quite well because you're used to richard pool, but um, that season where they change, actually that's season three, that they change over. Um, season three and season four are kind of an adjustment period, but then it gets good again I don't like when they change.
Speaker 3:When I get a new doctor, I get mad yes, yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because that show they they changed the lead instead of the supporting actors.
Speaker 1:Right, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't like that.
Speaker 1:That made me upset.
Speaker 3:Liam was angry at that.
Speaker 1:That was like one of the reasons why I stopped watching the Witcher, because they changed the lead guy and I was like I can't get used to that. Yeah, and I was like Liam, it's like it's just too weird. It's like my name's sake, liam Hems, namesake, liam hemsworth or whatever I was like nah nah, nah, nah, no, no, no, no, it's not, it's not, that's not good anymore.
Speaker 3:Um, but before we go I definitely want to get any more like fun stories you got just like from like your time, that like because I'm sure you've seen a lot of things. You're like whoa, that's weird or whatever like that's. Oh yeah, because those are fun.
Speaker 1:Um, so actually, one crazy story I was telling the other day is I've had organophosphate poisoning from work, and for people who don't know what that is, organophosphates are the same thing that they used in World War One to kill people. It's a poison, it's a neurotoxin, and so it's actually something that can be naturally produced. They used to have organophosphates and things like fertilizer, and most of it's been phased out, so people don't get that exposure anymore. But we had a person. So in the state that I'm in, they apparently still had it in some fertilizer. Um, so this person, uh, unfortunately had some mental health complications and decided to mix that fertilizer in with some water or something and then they drank it, and so that we had this person come in and I was doing the autopsy, and this was during like spring break too, so I was working a whole bunch because all the other students wanted to go and, you know, have fun and do stuff that's not work related, and I was too poor for that.
Speaker 1:So, you know, whatever, um, yeah, and so I was the one who was mostly doing the case and we had the forensic psychologist there and then there were two other techs. One was just cleaning as we went. So that way when we were done we could kind of just like mop and then go, so he wasn't really near the decedent at all. And then the other one, who's like the full-time person, who was there. She was kind of just like helping me hold things, because once I opened them there were a lot more liquidy inside than what we usually do so it was hard for me to hold.
Speaker 1:Um, there it was really weird. They just had a lot of like ascites, so like fluid build up in the abdomen, and I don't know the exact mechanism behind that. I haven't read into it in a while but because of that we were opening them and it was harder for me to hold things, because I can usually do like we call it end block, so that's where I would take out the neck and I leave everything connected, so I just lift all of the organs up and cut it from where it attaches to the spine and hand it off, and that takes me maybe 10 minutes, like at the most for normal people. I can just grab it, cut it and go.
Speaker 1:But then for this person, because they were so liquidy, I couldn't hold them. So I would get little towels, because we have a bunch of them to try to hold and then that towel would get soaked. So I couldn't and I'd have to keep swapping them out. So I was fully like over this person for probably 30 minutes, breathing in everything, and then the friend of the pathologist took it, put everything in water just in case, cause he thought once he started to open stuff, that's when things would be potentially released that might be hazardous, but no, they were off gassing organophosphates. So after work I was actually going to a Slipknot concert.
Speaker 3:Um, that was about an hour away.
Speaker 1:Yep. So I was driving there and I was like man, I have a crazy migraine right now, but I have chronic migraine. So I was like eh, it's normal. And then, like my eyes were kind of watering and my nose was running and I was like I got seasonal allergies, it's, you know, spring break.
Speaker 3:So I, yeah, I was like normal, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I drive all the way out there and I go and pick up my friend and usually I like to say I'm a really good driver. But I noticed like I was like running over curbs and like when I would step on my brakes I'm usually very like careful about it, but I was like slamming on them and my friend was like my God, like are we going to die today? And I was like I don't know what's happening, like I feel fine. So we went to this concert and like I was so excited Just everyone there, I love them and so in between sets I would like feel my migraine and I'm like holy shit, like this is horrible. But then the next set would start and I'd get excited and forget about it. So I'd keep listening. And at the end of the night I took my friend home and I drove back, realized I forgot all of my stuff at his place, didn't even remember it, like, didn't remember driving home, nothing, like it was gone, and I was like what happened?
Speaker 1:So I go to bed and then I get up in the morning and go to work again, and so the two forensic pathologists that I worked with they're married. So, um, his wife came in and like busted into the office that I was in and was like, did you have any of these symptoms? And I was like, yeah, but I always do. So like what's the difference? And she's like no, no, no, no. Like you guys got organophosphate poisoning. And so she's like if you have like diarrhea and all this stuff, like then you need to go to the hospital and get treatment for it, cause it's really bad, like that kills people.
Speaker 3:Just from breathing in what he drank. Yeah, that's crazy, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I was sitting there because I had never heard of it before. So I started looking it up and yeah, it's a neurotoxin, and so it basically inhibits, I believe, acetylcholine esterase and so basically what allows you to move your muscles, so people would become paralyzed and then, when you can't move your diaphragm, you can't breathe anymore. And I was like, holy crap, oh my God. And so then, doctor, or the one doctor who also was there, he also had it pretty bad and he was laughing. He's like, yeah, last night I was salivating Like I was at a golden corral and I was like, oh great.
Speaker 3:If that doesn't tell you the dose makes the poison, I don't know what does Cause right, right, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:It was really crazy and I remember I didn't have those specific symptoms, but memory loss is one of them and typically my short term memory isn't the best. I have ADHD, you know I got problems and so I just you know things come and go, but like I had pretty significant gaps of time or anything, no, thankfully I was okay. But I remember I told one of the ED physicians I work with about it and he goes you didn't get treatment and I was like, well, I don't know. I can't afford that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just about to say we're in America, we can't afford health care.
Speaker 1:I was like, are you kidding me? And he laughed and I was like, yeah, exactly, I'm just going to tough it out. Either. You know, I make it and I'm fine.
Speaker 3:Or I end up where I work Like that's just how it happens, yeah.
Speaker 1:I was like either way, it is what it is.
Speaker 3:I'm going into work one way or another.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my gosh there. There was one time that we had such a bad snowstorm Like my car was buried. So I remember texting them and was like, sorry, I can't come into work today. My car is buried under snow so I can't get out. And they're like, don't worry, we'll come get you. And I was like what they show up in the coroner truck and this is like almost a lifted pickup truck so that way they can go through bad weather.
Speaker 1:They pull up in front of my apartment building and, you know, it says on the side like in giant block letters coroner, like county coroner. And so I had to run outside through the snow and climb in there while everyone's staring at me and I was like great, thank you. I was so excited for a day off if you got like poison from that.
Speaker 3:Has there? Has there been like coroners or anyone like you know, autopsy, like assistants or anyone that's died from like doing an autopsy? I'm assuming that's gonna be very rare, I mean I yeah, so it is.
Speaker 1:There's like certain things that we won't do for the safety of the people who are performing the autopsy, like one of the biggest things is like CJD Crutesville-Yakub, I think you pronounce it that way Bad cow disease or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we, like most offices, won't do that. There are specific offices in the country that will so like we won't do that. There are specific offices in the country that will so like we won't even touch the case. I know one of them, I think, is in Western Michigan, and so some will go there, but otherwise, like no office is capable of doing those things. So, yeah, we won't do it. For a while.
Speaker 1:When COVID first started Cause I first started my job like right before the pandemic happened, and so we weren't taking cases that had COVID because we were too afraid of, like, the transmission of it and how it was working. And, uh, cause, at the time, you know, we didn't know. And then, once we started to learn a little bit more, we were able to take some more cases, but we had to wear like a full PAPR unit and like all this stuff to make sure. And so we like slowly started accepting those cases, depending on the situation. And then, um, yeah, there are different precautions that we'll take just in case. Um, usually transmission rates are pretty low for those types of things, but it's still like If you cut yourself or whatever you got to go in, like you get tested for all these things.
Speaker 1:I poked myself once and. I was like under observation for like nine months to make sure I didn't get like HIV or any of the heps or anything like that.
Speaker 3:Have you ever had someone with rabies? I've always thought that's like the worst way to die. It's like one of the worst ways.
Speaker 1:So we thought we did for one case, but it ended up being just outside of the window for rabies, um, and how it? Um, oh gosh, I can't remember off the top of my tongue the word for it, but how it like functions. You know, it goes through a process. So we were just outside of that time frame where it would have worked, because they were bitten by a dog or something like that, okay, but they died, like I think it was like 90 to 100 days later, which which is just outside that window, I believe. And so we're like, ok, well, it's not that. So now we have to go back to the drawing board to kind of see what might be going on.
Speaker 3:I don't have rabies, but I just do like I don't work around animals, but like that's just just like. As soon as you're like, that's it. There's no like if you get the vaccine or whatever within the time frame or know you can get that, yeah like right away because I keep seeing videos on tiktok now, like when I'm just scrolling and they're like I found a bat in my closet.
Speaker 1:Get that shit out of here yeah, and I was like, are you kidding me? Because now I'm like is this just a common thing that people are getting bats in their house all the time, and that scared the crap out of me I don't like, and so now I'm always paranoid because yeah, it's, it's not good. I'll say that from like case reports I've read. I've never seen a death from it, but it's not great.
Speaker 3:Fucking hot, take Rabies bad.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, who would have guessed?
Speaker 1:Don't like it yeah no, but there's always different like limitations to cases. I think I mentioned earlier. There's different laws about, like, what we can take and what we don't need to take, and so I think in situations where it is more dangerous, if they're comfortable they would probably just sign it out, like if someone went to a hospital and was diagnosed with rabies and then they died, the coroner or the medical examiner, whoever like oversees this case, depending on where it is, they'd probably look at it and be like yep, you know, we're comfortable just having you guys sign that out.
Speaker 3:We don't need to autopsy it Like we're good so do you think we should? Get rid of the coroner thing. Where are you at with that? Should we, should people not be running for office's coroner?
Speaker 1:Personally I think it needs an overhaul. I there are some counties where they or some states where they do have a law saying like the coroner has to be a physician, and at least if they have medical experience I think that helps because then they can look at a situation and know whether it needs an autopsy or not. But other places, yeah.
Speaker 3:But if your last job was like Chuck E Cheese or something, and then you go in with dead bodies, I'm like I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's not my favorite thing in the whole world. I don't really want that person deciding whether I need an autopsy or not in case something happens they get some kind of training, but still, I don't know yeah, some places do have you get like certified where you have to do like death investigation training, and other places don't.
Speaker 1:So you kind of just show up and then the like caveat to all of that is that we would have to have enough staffing to be able to make up for that. Like, if we're going to require that only physicians are coroners and we need to have enough physicians who would be willing to do that. And so that's the hard thing because, like a lot of medical students, when they go to med school, they either don't even know that forensic pathology exists. They think all of pathology is just looking at a microscope, you know, in the basement of the hospital all day. So they don't know it's a thing. And a lot of people I've met where they've like become an established professional in their field. They're like man, if I could go back, I would have gone into forensic pathology and I'm like that's why more people need to know about it, because you know it gives people options Before we go like what do you want people to know about?
Speaker 3:like forensic pathology, or is there things that like they're like? I wish people knew this.
Speaker 1:Yes. So I have a few little things that are kind of intertwined. One of them is it's not just dead people. You can do so much within forensic pathology because also the way you get there is you do your four years of med school, you have to do a pathology residency, so the most common one is going to be anatomic and clinical pathology. You have to at least do anatomic, and so that's about four years, and then you get to do a year-long fellowship in forensic pathology. So once you get there, you're also board certified to do these other things.
Speaker 1:So I know a bunch of forensic pathologists who have done both surgical pathology and they go and do forensic pathology or, if they want to take a break, they work at a hospital for a bit. Pathologists do a lot of different things that people don't realize, and so it's more than just looking at a microscope on seeing tissues that are there and doing histology. There's a lot that goes into it. And because there is such a demand, a lot of people are talking about the demand for primary care physicians, which is really important, but right now in the country I think there's only about 500 forensic pathologists and in order to do everything that we would want to do. I think we need probably triple that amount, if not more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because there's 50 states. I'm not great at math, but that's like 10 per state and like that's especially big. That's not that many.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not great, and even some states might only have one right, or maybe they have two and then others have more, but like the distribution is hard and yeah, and so that's one of the scary things is that you know we have to find ways to entice people to come into forensic pathology and really when you do that you kind of end up being a jack of all trades. I find it very similar to like emergency medicine, where you kind of have to know a little bit about everything to be able to do it right, because you can't go into forensic pathology and start doing an autopsy and be like, well, I didn't specialize in the kidneys, I'm not a nephrologist, so I don't know. Like you can't just do that. Or like sometimes we'll consult people, like we've consulted radiologists to look at x-rays or we've consulted neuropathologists, we'll take out the brain and then you can stick it in formalin and mail it out and they'll look at it for a better analysis, like little things like that.
Speaker 1:But you can't obviously do that for every case. So you end up knowing so much about a lot of different things and especially like surgeries. If a person's had had a surgery, you got to know what it is and how it was done. Was it done correctly? Um, and then, like emergency medicine, like I talked earlier, was it done correctly? Things like that. So that way you know how to approach each case, and so you learn a lot, and it's that's what makes it. I think one of the most exciting fields is because it really keeps you on your toes have you ever had a copy?
Speaker 3:like all right, I killed this person, but like maybe I pay you a little bit of money and maybe you say it was like cardiac arrest.
Speaker 1:So there was one time I was doing a case and it was an infant case and because I'm the senior, was a senior tech, I always had to do all of like the children in the infant cases, which kind of sucked. But I did my job because I knew it was important. And so we're doing this one. And this officer was there who was watching and he was insistent that it was a homicide. And we're like okay, well, like we're gonna do our job, we're gonna look and all that, and offered him a chair and whatnot to say, and he's like no, no, no.
Speaker 1:And you could tell he was grumpy and he was like this, far away from me, like just hovering and watching me, and I was like my God okay, and watching me. And I was like my God okay, Because I was also trying to teach a little bit to some of the other techs at the time, Like they weren't doing anything, but I was trying to explain what I was doing. And so we get through the whole thing and this guy's like so it's a homicide, right. And we're like no, like there's nothing here that shows that this is a homicide. And so the situation surrounding this was like homeless woman just had baby was sent home from hospital right away without any kind of care plan and process, and at that time you could only stay in the shelter for so long, and so they went to stay somewhere else where they ended up co-sleeping and woman rolled over stuff like that, and so very, very sad obviously not great but my suspicion and suspicion of other people in the office, this was a homeless person, first of all, but also a woman of color, um, and so they, yeah, and so they kept saying, like well, it's a homicide, and we're like no, like there's nothing here to suggest that there was anything of that nature just like an incredibly tragic case
Speaker 1:yeah. So then we finish the case. This guy stomps out. Uh, we get a phone call like 30 minutes to an hour later. This guy wouldn't complain to his boss, saying that we're all stupid and incompetent, we don't know what we're doing. We didn't like even let him sit down, so he had to stand the whole time. And we're like what, like this, yeah, oh yeah, and just like this whole thing. So he called, called our boss like the head forensic pathologist. So then she called us and was like what happened? And so we went through the case and she's like, oh yeah, they can fuck off, like yeah, and thankfully, like I'll say, most forensic pathologists have really good integrity about this. I don't know everyone and there are definitely instances of corruption. There's actually an award for forensic pathologists that they give out every year who stands up for the right reason against people who are trying to bribe them.
Speaker 3:That's actually really good. I hope the medal's like a graveyard or something like a tombstone, Right? That would be so cool. I've never seen it, but I know the one forensic pathologist I worked with got it. If it's not a tombstone, I would be very disappointed.
Speaker 1:It would be very, very cool. I should look it up and see, because it was actually made. Oh gosh, I can't remember the name of it, but in like right outside New York City there was that prison and they had the prison riot like way back when. And that's when, like, the officers went in and just like shot everyone and then tried to blame it on the prisoners to make them look bad, and they were like, don't tell everyone that we went in there and killed them, cause I think they even killed some of their own people when they went in and did this.
Speaker 1:It starts with an a. That's all I can remember. But, yeah, the forensic pathologist who did all those autopsies noticed that the bullets matched their guns not anything that the prisoners had, and like they tortured some of these prisoners like made them walk over broken glass, like all that stuff, um, and so they tried to pay off the forensic pathologist to not say anything. They even threatened him, threatened his family, like he had to get protection set up, but he still stood up for what he knew was right and spoke out about it, and so that was uh, who they made the medal or the award for yeah, yeah, and so that's something that's pretty big and that's why we always try to emphasize that, like we don't work for cops or for the FBI.
Speaker 1:We work alongside them but we're independent because we need to be able to form our own opinion, and sometimes officers aren't going to like it, but, if I'm being honest, sometimes officers are stupid. That's just kind of how it is. And, um, I some of them have asked me the most ridiculous questions that I was like are you okay? Um, like, one of them insisted that we would take. So after a case when the forensic pathologist is cutting up the organs and stuff, we take little sections that we'll put into a stock jar. And this is kind of reassurance, like, let's say, we're really banking on toxicology to come back saying this person overdosed and they didn't. Now we don't have the body anymore because it takes for us.
Speaker 1:It was really fast. It was about two months for these results to come back. So obviously they're not with us. We have to send them on their way. So now we have to figure out what actually happens. So now we have to figure out what actually happens. So now they have these sections of tissue that they've saved in this jar that they can take out and look at again to see what else is going on.
Speaker 1:So did the cop ask you if it was a trophy.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to figure out what the cop like what could they possibly like you? So?
Speaker 1:them. I think it was also like the fire chief or whoever that was there but they were like, oh yeah, so you guys put these in water and you freeze it and you store it in a fridge, Right, and we're like no, no, this is formal. And they're like no, I'm pretty sure that's water. And I was like you want to drink it and we'll test it. Like no, it's not water. Because then I was trying to explain to him like when you freeze tissues, it destroys the tissue, Right, Because the water is expanding and it's stretching all that stuff.
Speaker 2:And they're like no, no, and I was like okay, yeah standing outside in minus 40 degrees is bad. Oh yeah, yeah, we've done a lot of frozen cases.
Speaker 1:Um, when they freeze, obviously you can't cut into them right away. So we always say you have to thaw them, like a turkey where you bring them out for a little bit, you put them back in the cooler for a bit, bring them out that kind of a thing, because once you start to melt, you decomp right away. Like you will see the turns so fast, and so we're trying to preserve everything we can. So I was like, yeah, if we were to do something like that and bring it out in two months, that tissue is gonna be goo, like that would not help our purpose at all, so there's no reason to do that.
Speaker 1:But there's a lot of crazy things that happen and there's definitely bits of corruption. That's kind of earlier what I was almost getting into as well as like when you have ex-cops who are coroners going to these things. I think there was a study done, I don't remember for sure, where they actually saw that like a lot of cases, if cops were involved would be signed out as like an accident, when it should have been a homicide, and for us homicide is a medical term, so it just means that someone was involved in your death doesn't necessarily say that there's guilt or that there wasn't reason, like it could have been self-defense, something like that, whatever wasn't necessarily manslaughter yeah, yeah, exactly, and so that's when it gets into law speak and that's past our you know expertise.
Speaker 1:But yeah, um, so then cases weren't being done appropriately and so there's a lot of like issues with people doing that and you know, I'm sure there are great ex-cops out there who are, you know, coroners that try to do things correctly but but also it's like it's just inherently a conflict of interest, and so there's that big issue. That's that's there.
Speaker 3:So, yes, okay, so the cops aren't always invited to your, to your parties that you throw, basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um, no, we uh and it's funny cause, like when we worked, every time we think that something could be a homicide we would always ask them to come, and most of the time they would, but sometimes they'd be like, ah, no, and we're like no, what do you mean? No, and so yeah, so the system, just generally the death investigation system, really isn't great and.
Speaker 1:I watched an interview the other day by Dr Damao. So he's like pretty big in pathology and so he wrote like some of the big textbooks that we all learn from and whatnot. And so he was talking. He's like the death investigative system death investigation system is horrible, it sucks, it's really bad. And the interviewer was like, well, this person says otherwise and he's like well, that person's wrong, but there's a lot that goes into it and ultimately it comes down to just resources, because people forget about us, right, like we don't get a lot of money because you're not thinking about the fact that you might be dead yeah it's over and that's just the end of it.
Speaker 1:And so then you know it's hard to hire new people to come in and it's hard to get people certified or get them to have higher qualifications because they want better pay and things like that.
Speaker 3:To quote what was it the mummy? Death is only the beginning. That's like your job, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:That's the biggest thing. There was a quote that I really liked from this book I read. It was from a forensic anthropologist. He kind of talked about his life. He's the one who started the body farms. They have a few around the United States where they do research on this stuff. So that's how we get a lot of our information. But he was saying you know, at the end of the day I can't bring back your loved one, I can't make everything better, but what I can do is give you the truth and that is like the biggest honor a scientist can give at the end of the day is the truth. So you can start to understand, you can grieve and go through your process and you can heal. And that's as much as we can do. And that is still a pretty big job.
Speaker 2:And, in some cases, save further lives with the genetic testing and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Sometimes there's more that goes into it and we can do more.
Speaker 3:What I'm getting from this is make sure you get your cholesterol checked and watch out for heart disease and your coroner or whoever examines you will get to know you very well, so understand that with what you keep on your body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, also, if you can shave your head, because going through hair is so hard, totally If you can just be naked, that would also be great Saves a lot of time.
Speaker 3:Some people are going to be very excited about this information. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's our favorite thing.
Speaker 1:We'd open up a body bag and we're like everyone they're naked, this is great, and so we don't have to worry about inventorying, and so we're all excited. Or like someone who is bald will come in and we're like, yes, because then on one hand, it makes it a little bit more difficult for the funeral home, because they have to hide the incision that we make.
Speaker 1:So we can go in to get the brain but for us it's great because we try to like we'll separate the hair and like I'll tie it up so that way I'm not cutting all your hair off. But it's, some people have such thick hair and I'm like I'm so sorry as I go through, or like one of the things that we had to be careful about working with reservations is the indigenous people around us have that spiritual connection with their hair too. So whenever I would cut some of it off by accident, I tried really, really hard not to. But if I did, I would gather it and then I put it back with the body so it stays with them. So there are little things like that. So I always tell people if you can shave your head, take off your clothes.
Speaker 3:Shave your head and be naked. Those are the two main takeaways from this.
Speaker 2:That would be great, any bald guys out there that are worried about losing their hair. Don't worry, there is a forensic pathologist excited to see you.
Speaker 1:We say thank you. Yeah, exactly. Every time I see people like that, I'm like, yeah, that would be a great one.
Speaker 3:Well, make sure, before you go, you introduce yourself, because we never did that. You probably should tell people.
Speaker 2:Oh, don't worry, we did that while you were checking your car. Oh, awesome, perfect Okay great, everything's fine.
Speaker 3:By the way, there was a big metal piece that was stuck under my car.
Speaker 1:I thought something was dragging on the floor or the ground or whatever, but there was just a big metal shard just under my car. I don't know was a thing that could happen, but in the winter it gets so cold here that they are like, oh, car warm, and so then they build their nest around, like my air filter and stuff, and so my car will start to smell funky and I'll have to go get it and then you get caught to virus or whatever that is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they'll come in and bite me and like I've done everything to try to keep these freaking mice out and they just don't care. I think they one will leave and just tells all their friends and then they come back with more and whenever I get my oil change, they'll look at it and be like, yeah, see you. And I'm like I know, I know, I have mice again. Just replace it, it's fine.
Speaker 2:Clean it out.
Speaker 3:Whatever you got to do, and they're like, okay, what a thing to drive up to the mechanic and be like listen, I know there's mice in there, I just need the oil changed.
Speaker 1:And the guys are always like, well, do you park outside getting in?
Speaker 2:but somehow they do it and they're like huh, okay, and they're like well, you live in the country. No, as a person that lives in the country in a cold area, that's, your problem is you're parking in the garage.
Speaker 1:Leave the garage for the mice park outside maybe put some mouse just like make sure you tell your friends before they get in there one time I was so angry about it I was in like the poison section of Walmart looking at everything and then I was like, yeah, great idea, julia, put poison in your air filter in your car. So you breathe it in when you drive everywhere. And so I walked away and I was like I can't.
Speaker 3:That death certificate is going to be real weird.
Speaker 1:Right, they'll just find me like on the ditch of some road, just slumped in my car, and they're going to be like, oh, she's probably like high on drugs no, I poisoned myself on accident who would have thunk?
Speaker 1:But no, it's always an interesting day here. I am excited to get back into it, hopefully once I go to medical school. I was on a wait list for somewhere and I was super excited about it, but with I think I mentioned earlier, with the bill being passed, it's not really something I can afford to do right now Because they limited how much you can take out in federal loans for students, and so I'm gonna try to work for a little while. I actually just had an interview the other day for a full time philanthropist position through the hospital and I was like I think my experience in forensic pathology and understanding public health gives me great qualifications for setting up community health guidelines Like or not guidelines, but like events and helping people, because I know why y'all die and let me tell you a lot of the times we can avoid this together, and so I think that would be great Jack of all trades.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I do a little bit of everything. So hopefully maybe next year or the year after I'll be able to reapply and maybe have some money saved up, maybe have some family members willing to, you know, sign their life away on some private loans, go from there. Maybe I can get some scholarships or something too. But we'll see.
Speaker 2:We'll start a GoFundMe. Yes, I mean all our health care is funded by GoFundMe.
Speaker 3:now why not oh?
Speaker 1:yeah.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Please, I promise I'll be a good doctor. I promise I'll be really good about it.
Speaker 3:I got cancer and I'd like to not go bankrupt from it. I'll be really good about it. I got cancer and I'd like to not go bankrupt from it. Can anybody else help America?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, right. Oh my gosh, that's always like the saddest thing ever.
Speaker 3:It's the fucking saddest shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause it's like that is, no one should have to worry about that, like I for a while. So, like I mentioned earlier, I get chronic migraines and I had one that just wouldn't go away and I had it for like four or five days and I even texted my friend. She's a physician's associate and she works in neuro. So I was like, hey, should I go to the doctor? Like am I okay, because I'm not going to spend money on it right now if I don't need to. And I was like, is this ER worthy, or can I just wait to go see my neuro? And she's like, oh, no, you should be fine, like try some of these things. And I'm like, sweet, thank you, because I uh, I'm already not really eating as much, trying to save money. So like, if I have to shell out a thousand dollars not even a thousand way more just to go to the er, that's not gonna do too great god, that's so crazy it's, it's fucking wild every time you guys tell me about that it's yeah.
Speaker 3:So many people go bankrupt because you, you know, my kid got this disease or you know, whatever it is like, all sorts it's yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:We had in the emergency department a bit ago. There was this patient who came in who wanted to be seen. But then they were really upset because they're like I want to be seen by my family medicine physician because my insurance won't cover anything else and we're like, well, even if they do come to the ED, it's still going to count as an emergency department visits. You still get the bill. And like you could just tell how distraught they were trying to decide if they even wanted care in the first place and like I think we did have to, unfortunately, call the police because they were starting to like threaten people.
Speaker 1:They were so upset but I was like at the end of the day, like, I get it like should you be threatening health care staff?
Speaker 3:no, but yeah, like that's hard, you might be dying right now and you can't.
Speaker 1:You have to decide like how much am I dying and how much money is dying worth like that's a situation that no one really should be in and that's something that we would see in forensics too, like when we we're doing autopsies. It would be very preventable conditions that if they could afford treatment, but they can't, and so then that's something we would have to get context for, and we would see that and be like, well, yeah, like what are they supposed to do? They're in this system that's screwed up, that doesn't benefit them, unfortunately, and like their options are limited and some people in medicine don't get that, and so they'll be like well, if you need it, then you need it, and it's like that's not how that works, though.
Speaker 1:Like a while ago, I had to get a bunch of like dental work done because I had one cavity that got really, really bad, um, and so I was like oh yeah, I have to go and get this, but I just can't afford it right now. My friend was like but you need, yeah, I have to go in and get this, but I just can't afford it right now. My friend was like but you need it. Like that stuff can spread and it can. Like you can get cardiac stuff, you can die from it, and I was like cool, but I don't have $500 to shell out to get this fixed right now, like I can't just, you know, do a little payment plan. They don't really do that, and so it took them a bit to understand, and that's what's tough is like that 500 bill will turn into a 5,000, $10,000 bill
Speaker 1:because you waited, because you had to wait, because you didn't have right. It's expensive to be poor, yes, yeah, and it's so frustrating because I lost my dental insurance, I think when I was like 17 or something, and so I just never had it since then and my dad had a good plan for us because he was a vet and whatnot. But like once I was off it I was like, okay, so even like the tiniest cavity in the whole world that you need to get filled, just to the dentist a few years ago. So it was like what, seven or eight years later that I finally decided to go and, thankfully, like I could spread it out. But it was like, holy crap, there's a lot of money and I can't afford all of that.
Speaker 1:And then I had to get my wisdom teeth removed and then I had an infection because of that that killed off one of my other teeth and I had to get a root canal. And I was like, are you kidding me? Like it doesn't end, it just keeps building up. And now you know I probably have like $15,000 worth of debt just in my mouth. So my teeth are yellow but they're expensive. So at least the comfort I have is if I die and they have to identify me. I got a great mouth for them to identify me with, so there's no worries about me being lost forever.
Speaker 3:It is a silver lining nonetheless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. It works out in the end Kind of, as long as I don't, you know, die horribly somewhere where no one knows who I am, oh shit.
