Spotlight on... anatomical pathology technologists

What are your names?
Trina Ross and Matt Rogers

What are your official Job Titles?
Anatomical Pathology Technicians

How long have you been in your current role?
Trina: 12 years
Matt: 10 years

What previous jobs have you had?
Trina: An orthopaedic nurse at LRI
Matt: An undertaker

How long have you been at UHL?
Trina: 17 years
Matt: 10 years

What interested you in this job?
Trina: I waited 4 years for a job to come up in the mortuary.
I had always wanted to work in here.

What does a typical day involve?
We receive deceased patients into our care twenty four hours a day seven days a week. When a deceased patient is received we make a detailed record of them and their property. At 6am each morning we prepare the deceased that require an autopsy for the pathologist. We can perform up to 22 autopsies each day. Before the cause of death is determined, the identity of the deceased has to be confirmed. The majority of identifi cations are confirmed visually by the next of kin, but in some circumstances, after severe trauma, we need to use fingerprints or DNA, but we use our reconstruction techniques to ensure the deceased is presentable to their loved ones. We are one of the busiest forensic centres in the UK and deal with police, pathologists and solicitors from all over the country. We are also a teaching centre and provide supervision, training and education to junior pathologists.

What is the best thing about your job?
Trina: Sometimes people ask me how I can work in the mortuary but it’s a really interesting job and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. When relatives leave their deceased loved ones here they are leaving them in our care and that is a
huge honour.

Matt: If a deceased patient comes in after a road traffic incident it is our job to make the deceased as presentable as possible for relatives. It gives me a real sense of achievement to know that the work we do helps grieving relatives.

What is the worst thing about your job?
People sometimes think it is a strange place to work and misunderstand what we do. People often think we don’t have any emotions and that we are very hard, but it’s not the case. Sometimes we do go home at the end of a shift feeling upset.

What hours do you work?
We work 8 hour shifts and are on-call, both during the week and at weekends. If a deceased patient needs to be identified by relatives we are called out in the middle of the night.

Do you work in the community?
Yes

What has been the proudest moment in your career?
Trina: For me it was getting the opportunity to do reconstruction in the aftermath of the London bombings last year. I spent three weeks there doing reconstruction for
23 of the victims. All of the victims were identified within a week. I learnt so much and am proud to have been part of such a big, well-organised operation.

Matt: I went to Thailand for three weeks after the Tsunami to work on DNA retrieval. I worked in very humid temperatures wearing protective clothing to protect the deceased so that they could be hygienically transported back to their home countries. Many of the people I worked alongside had worked in the 9/11 operation. I learnt so much from them and it was an honour to work with them.

Which site are you based at or do you work across all three sites?
LRI, but we work across all three sites What qualifications and experience is required? Two years working full time in a mortuary prior to sitting your exam and then two more years in the mortuary to qualify for the Royal Institute of Public Health’s Diploma in Anatomical Pathology Technology.

How has the service developed since you’ve been here?
Technicians do more specialised work now. For example, we are all trained to carry out cornea transplants and assist in the removal of heart valves for transplantation. We are also much more involved in autopsies and remove the organs for the pathologist and take the blood for toxicology. We also do much more forensic work than we used to.

Test and image produced from TrustTalk March 2006, University Hospitals of Leicester.

Further information

What is an anatomical pathology technologist?
Download the AAPT (UK) Careers Advice Leaflet