Forensic Pathologist Careers
What is forensic pathologist? A forensic pathologist determines the cause of death of a person by examining a cadaver. The pathologist performs the autopsy at the request of the coroner, usually in criminal law and civil law cases. The pathologist may also confirm the identity if the cadaver.
How to become a forensic pathologist:
Well, first of all, you will need to graduate high school.
After high school you will need four years of college to get a bachelors degree. There are forensic pathology colleges out there, or colleges that have forensic pathology programs. For these four years, you will have to prepare to get into medical school. Yes, I said medical school. In general, you will need two years of chemistry (inorganic and organic, two years of biology, one to two years of English, and one of physics. You don’t have to have a major in science to get into Medical School, and some schools frown on it. Humanity is a good thing to major in. You will still want to take a lot of science courses though, as many as you can get into besides the required ones.
Then you will need about four years of medical school and get a MD. You will want to focus on patient care. You will want to do an autopsy rotation early in your elective bloc so you will have experience. Taking this will also tell you if pathology is right for you. You can usually arrange the rotation in a large medical examiner’s office.
After medical school you are on to four or five years of residency. You will want someplace associate with a university. The value of your residency will be dependent of the rapport between the residence and faculty. This can be hard to judge, so you could arrange a med. School pathology elective in one or more departments you are looking at for residency training.
The next step is one to two years of forensic pathology fellowship. This will make you eligible to take the board exam in forensic pathology. You will need to go to a big city to get enough experience. You will want to do about 250 autopsies a year to get the right amount of experience. If you get less, you will not have the experience, and if you have too many more you will be too busy to read, study, and do the workups on your cases.
Yes, becoming a pathologist is a very long and difficult process, but the benefits may outweigh the trouble for you. Forensic pathology salary is $60,000 to $180,000 a year, depending on your experience. Since you will be a government employee your benefits will be pretty good. You will get the satisfaction knowing that you helped put criminals behind bars and being able to comfort the grieving families. Also, this is definitely not a boring job. There are many challenges.
You can find more information of forensic pathology online.