Ask the forensic pathologist - or, Last chance to pontificate

[gabriela]

Dear Dopers,

I just posted this to the end of a thread in GQ:

Awww.
May I say a big Awww to all the Dopers.

Mr. Slant, I cannot belong to the Dope; the rules at my workplace would have me strung up. I only took the free guest month because somebody wanted to know how far you have to fall to die, and my memory is bursting with one of the few actual studies on that very topic. I shouldn't really be posting but I think I can slide with General Questions since I am allowed to use the Net to find out work-related information. A lot of y'all here are far more informed than I am on - well on everything, but to make it work-legitimate, on tangentially forensics-related questions such as Pistols vs Revolvers (see thread). I know what bullets do to the body, but not much about what fires 'em. However, that doesn't legitimate me paying money to belong to the Straight Dope through a work-protected proprietary server, and so, as of April 2, I'm gone.

I've been a lurker for a long time, and I have to say it takes a certain something to be a Doper (besides eloquence and time). I'm not sure I have this quality. Listen up, y'all, because I am struggling to express myself here. There must be a certain weird humility I'm not sure I possess. Arrogance, oh yeah, admixed; you have to be the sort of person who, when someone asks "How many people fantasize about you when they're masturbating", instinctively fires back, "All of them!" But you also have to be the type who takes a joke, has a thick skin, self-deprecates, admits to mistakes - in short, a real intellectual humility. I think I would be too tempted to pontificate to fit in.

Yours,
Gabriela

I thought, since I have five more hours on my work-protected server and it's a quiet day (nobody died in a forensic way today), I'd see if anyone wants to know anything about anything I do. Squushy ucky is fine. Cannot comment on cases I have worked on that have not been adjudicated, but free to comment on anyone else's cases reported in the media.

By the way: I found none of the images in today's Threadspotting thread, Don't Google This, either disgusting, or new.

I did this once on a radio show in Tennessee. I still remember the two questions I got: do fingernails grow after death, and do women have eleven or twelve ribs? Sheesh.

Gabriela

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Hm. Well, dammit, we want you around. Eloquent or not, your expertise in such a field makes us all better because we learn from you. Repent and pay your 15 bucks.


I've heard that bodies floating in water are difficult/impossible to identify. Is this true? If so, exactly what makes them so unidentifiable?

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Ooooh..also, do you watch CSI?

Is it accurate in any degree? Are you telling me there aren't beautiful people working in crime labs all over the nation?!?!?!

[Bricker]

How often do you testify in criminal cases?

What's your view of how effective (or ineffective) defense counsel's tactics are at tripping you up, discrediting your conclusions, etc? Do you usually leave the stand feeling confident the jury got it, or fuming that the defense screwed up your presentation?

[twickster]

Ooooh..also, do you watch CSI?

Is it accurate in any degree? Are you telling me there aren't beautiful people working in crime labs all over the nation?!?!?!

Nah, they all look like Abby on NCIS. :rolleyes:

Sign up on your home computer! Anyone who can come up with such an eloquent explanation of why he or she isn't Doper Material -- is Doper Material. Ironic, eh?

[ivylass]

Can't you post from home?

[Crotalus]

When I read your replies in the gun standoff thread and noticed you were a guest, my first thought was "I hope she joins". Still hoping.

[Dewey Finn]

Can't you post from home?
My guess is that her employer's rules would prohibit that as well, but if not, I'd also encourage gabriela to join. If not perhaps she could be persuaded to write a staff report at least.

[gabriela]

Hm. Well, dammit, we want you around. Eloquent or not, your expertise in such a field makes us all better because we learn from you. Repent and pay your 15 bucks.


I've heard that bodies floating in water are difficult/impossible to identify. Is this true? If so, exactly what makes them so unidentifiable?

Sorry for delay! I went off to look at a baby heart and look at all these people!!

LeOrUsNaEver, whose name I adore, thank you for your stern and dominatrix-style kindness. (touched, wipes tear from eye) Dominator, if you're male.

Ah, floaters: I can smell the bodies when you ask me that. That's my problem, none of the rest of you read this in smell-o-vision.

LOUNE, the bodies bloat up as they decompose, and they decompose fast. The lips turn outwards, the eyes swell up, the entire body bloats into a whale. We have a saying that they all look like catfish because of the lips. The outer layer of the skin floats off, leaving the race unassessable to casual inspection. The smell is unbelievable.

So they're not visually identifiable. That's problem one. But we almost don't go by visual ID any more unless it's a matter of hours between death and finding by loved ones. So fingerprints? So there's this thing called degloving, see. Not right away, but after a couple of days in water the whole skin of the hand sloughs off like a glove (and so does the skin of the feet), and floats off, carrying the fingernails (and toenails) with it. No prints.

Problem three. If they are in the Chesapeake Bay, the crabs eat them. Not all of them. Only the face and hands and superficial tissues. Crabs have to get a grip to eat. I have stopped eating crabs, myself. The life cycle is just too short, them to us to them.

Problem four. You can still ID the body if you have a good guess who it is, either by dental x-rays, or by chest or body x-rays, or by DNA. The DNA may not work because decomposition messes with it, but it may work. But all these problems mean you need to have a good guess who it is. If you don't, two or three years in the back reaches of our cooler, then the sheriff will bury your unidentified self.

That help?

[gabriela]

Ooooh..also, do you watch CSI?

Is it accurate in any degree? Are you telling me there aren't beautiful people working in crime labs all over the nation?!?!?!

Only once. I was too frustrated to keep watching.

They get all the science right, and none of anything real right. You got it on the nose with that beautiful people thing. But even more, their labs have infinite money, because all the results come back before the end of the show. You know how long it takes me to get alcohol and cocaine back on blood? Four weeks. SOmetimes six. If I have to rule out a complicated overdose on mixed methadone and antidepressants, twelve weeks. Try telling that to a family that watches a lot of CSI.

A friend I talked to at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting does DNA for a living. She has a private research project running on DNA from her family. Her own family is bugging her because it's been two months and no results. She says, "The thing that shocks me when they deliver the DNA results is the lab people are wearing the same clothes!" In her lab, you'd need to sleep in your clothes for twenty weeks to deliver the results in the same clothes in which you took the request. And then you wouldn't look at all CSIish.

Also, to the great laughter of our real forensic techs and medicolegal investigators, the CSI guys get assigned to ONE case at a time, they follow that case through all the way to its conclusion, they do ALL the tests involved in it rather than handing the stuff off to competent people to test, and they are never asked to handle anything else.

Speaking of great laughter, nobody in CSI seems to have our universal gruesome sense of humor.

The other thing about CSI is sociology. CSI implies that guys who make thirty thousand dollars a year get to tell other people what they should do. For earnest young people sitting watching TV, trying to decide what field they should go into, dangling that false lure in front of them is just not fair.

Do you watch TV shows about your field?

Gabriela

[gabriela]

How often do you testify in criminal cases?

What's your view of how effective (or ineffective) defense counsel's tactics are at tripping you up, discrediting your conclusions, etc? Do you usually leave the stand feeling confident the jury got it, or fuming that the defense screwed up your presentation?

I testify about twice a month. Sometimes twice a week, sometimes not at all for six weeks. I get handfuls of subpoenas; the vast majority of cases are continued or plead out; I probably testify once for every 15 subpoenas I get.

Lawyers who try to talk to regular doctors find the regular doctors are afraid to talk to them (although I bet not QtheM!). So they subpoena them to get them to call them. It's like writing a prescription for me.

The defense is not trying to trip me up or discredit me. They are trying to win their case. Sometimes the only way to do that is to make me look stupid, but it's not nearly as often as you'd think. If I'm describing the holes that bullets made through a person, often they're not interested in that at all. Prosecution will usually try to make me look good because I make the jury gasp, but that's not a guarantee either, particularly if I don't agree with what they're doing. I like to think of myself as not a prosecution witness. Or a defense witness. Though it's hard if one side tends to butter you up, and the other doesn't. Just the facts (and my opinions), ma'am.

It's not personal, either; not at all. Sometimes defense will make me look stupid for one line of questioning if they need to discredit something I said because it tends to convict their client. Then a second later they're calling me "Doctor" respectfully, and referring to my expertise, because they need me to look smart while I explain to the jury that the dead guy was high on cocaine and drunk, and that helps their self-defense explanation.

I only get to see one little tiny piece of the trial: my piece. I leave the stand confident that the jury got my piece. One thing I look for: the inevitable thirty-something blonde yearning at me with the "You go, girl!" look on her face, the two guys in Pendleton shirts looking thoughtful and nodding intelligently, and the ancient black grandmother gazing in shock at me with that "This is not right!" look. If I see that, I know I've gotten through to them.

I'm kind of glad I don't have to know if the jury has gotten the whole case the way I see it or not. I don't decide who's guilty (except in child abuse homicides where I often know, alas). I let the jury decide who's guilty. Helps me to sleep at night, doncha know.

[gabriela]

Nah, they all look like Abby on NCIS. :rolleyes:

Sign up on your home computer! Anyone who can come up with such an eloquent explanation of why he or she isn't Doper Material -- is Doper Material. Ironic, eh?

I am so honored and flabbergasted that the Poster Known as Twickster has spoken to me that I must collapse into custardy silence.

[gabriela]

Can't you post from home?

Not on the computer at home much. Could, I guess. Would always be catching up to threads long gone past. Also, see first explanation of why I lack the essential Doper quality to survive.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Sorry for delay! I went off to look at a baby heart and look at all these people!!

LeOrUsNaEver, whose name I adore, thank you for your stern and dominatrix-style kindness. (touched, wipes tear from eye) Dominator, if you're male.

Ah, floaters: I can smell the bodies when you ask me that. That's my problem, none of the rest of you read this in smell-o-vision.

LOUNE, the bodies bloat up as they decompose, and they decompose fast. The lips turn outwards, the eyes swell up, the entire body bloats into a whale. We have a saying that they all look like catfish because of the lips. The outer layer of the skin floats off, leaving the race unassessable to casual inspection. The smell is unbelievable.

So they're not visually identifiable. That's problem one. But we almost don't go by visual ID any more unless it's a matter of hours between death and finding by loved ones. So fingerprints? So there's this thing called degloving, see. Not right away, but after a couple of days in water the whole skin of the hand sloughs off like a glove (and so does the skin of the feet), and floats off, carrying the fingernails (and toenails) with it. No prints.

Problem three. If they are in the Chesapeake Bay, the crabs eat them. Not all of them. Only the face and hands and superficial tissues. Crabs have to get a grip to eat. I have stopped eating crabs, myself. The life cycle is just too short, them to us to them.

Problem four. You can still ID the body if you have a good guess who it is, either by dental x-rays, or by chest or body x-rays, or by DNA. The DNA may not work because decomposition messes with it, but it may work. But all these problems mean you need to have a good guess who it is. If you don't, two or three years in the back reaches of our cooler, then the sheriff will bury your unidentified self.

That help?

Actually, yes. It does help. And dominator, thank you.


By the way, I'm a college student. I think I might watch some tv shows on my occupation, except I haven't really got an occupation yet. I've got so many damned interests that, if I stayed in school for them all, I'd be forty by the time I graduated.
I had heard of a few of the things concerning the floaters and the CSI talk. I figured I'd get your take on the CSI because you're convenient, and the floaters because you're...well...close to it and I should ask you, dammit.
In my opinion, we need more of your folk around, not less. Time isn't necessarily a matter either. Just because most of the membres seem to have cats doesn't mean you need to tend to the Dope as if it were a cat.

How long do you keep bodies around for? Additionally, what was the last thing you saw that made you do a double-take?

[gabriela]

When I read your replies in the gun standoff thread and noticed you were a guest, my first thought was "I hope she joins". Still hoping.

Awwwww............

[Least Original User Name Ever]

You know, we're going to SO butter you up until you relent and join.

You might as well save us the time AND the butter.

[Kalhoun]

Tell me about your educational background. Is it a ton of school? How long into you education before you find out if you have "the right stuff" to deal with dead folks all the time?

I could read stuff like this all day. I wanna be you!!!!

[gabriela]

My guess is that her employer's rules would prohibit that as well, but if not, I'd also encourage gabriela to join. If not perhaps she could be persuaded to write a staff report at least.

Uh. Staff is way above my head. Mods and stuff like that. Gods of the Boards. Near devotees to the actual Cecil and His Disciple, Ed. Hi Opal, and all that. (Not that I'd know what that means)

[gabriela]

Actually, yes. It does help. And dominator, thank you.


By the way, I'm a college student. I think I might watch some tv shows on my occupation, except I haven't really got an occupation yet. I've got so many damned interests that, if I stayed in school for them all, I'd be forty by the time I graduated.

You?? Are a college student? As in ... twenty? How the hell do you know all the things you know?!

(thinks of what she knew in college - rather, what she didn't know - slinks away and hides her head in shame)

How long do you keep bodies around for? Additionally, what was the last thing you saw that made you do a double-take?

We try not to keep bodies around for very long. Smell bad, take up space in the big cooler. If they're really unidentified, six months of effort and then we get the sheriff to bury them in what is colloquially known as Potter's Field.

The last thing that made me do a double take was nine healing broken ribs in a three-month-old who I was sure was going to be a SIDS. With new fractures through two of the old fractures.

[gabriela]

You know, we're going to SO butter you up until you relent and join.

You might as well save us the time AND the butter.

<snork>

[Dewey Finn]

I'm no one official, but it seems to me that your expertise would certainly qualify you to write a staff report. As for your concerns about lacking the "Doper quality to survive," you might be happy if you posted only in the General Questions forum. Some people prefer to stay out of the Pit or Great Debates.

[gabriela]

Tell me about your educational background. Is it a ton of school? How long into you education before you find out if you have "the right stuff" to deal with dead folks all the time?

I could read stuff like this all day. I wanna be you!!!!


It's a ton of school. High school, college pre-med (I messed around with other majors in college and ended up spending five years there, then two years doing other things before I got into med school), four years of med school, four years of residency, a year of fellowship in forensic pathology, then you got to take your boards and get a real job. By the way, they start paying you after med school, but the starting salary is about 30K for 60 hours a week. Was 27k for 90 hours a week when I started... two years before Libby Zion died... sure QtM knows what I mean.

There are other ways to have fun with dead bodies without going through thirteen years of post high school training. Forensic tech for the cops. Forensic tech for us (very interesting job, horribly underpaid). Police officer. Forensic anthropology - ah, the field I would have married if I didn't marry the field I did - you gots to get a PhD, but at least no med school. Lotsa stuff.

If you do go to med school, meet your dead body on your first day. Hello, cadaver. Ugh. You smell of crock-juice (formaldehyde etc).

Dealing with sick people is in some ways tougher than dealing with dead people. Dead people don't complain.

[Pandora]

I am so honored and flabbergasted that the Poster Known as Twickster has spoken to me that I must collapse into custardy silence.


And I had lunch with the Poster Known as Twickster yesterday...
See what benefits being a Doper can bring you :)
Seriously, stick around if you can. I certainly don't post much, but no one seems to mind

[gabriela]

I'm no one official, but it seems to me that your expertise would certainly qualify you to write a staff report.

I'm no one official, and I'm not sure you're right.

As for your concerns about lacking the "Doper quality to survive," you might be happy if you posted only in the General Questions forum. Some people prefer to stay out of the Pit or Great Debates.

I'm sure you're right.

[gabriela]

And I had lunch with the Poster Known as Twickster yesterday...
See what benefits being a Doper can bring you :)

Gasp!
We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're not worthy!

[Kalhoun]

Wow. Do you get emotionally involved very often (no, I didn't mean romantically, you sick fucks). I'm sure you build up a wall after a while...but does it get to you sometimes?

[Least Original User Name Ever]

I agree with Kalhoun and Dewey Finn on both of their points.

Even though I'm 24 and I know a lot about a lot of crap, I want to know about everything. Every little bit helps.

It's how Ben Franklin got his education (part of it, at least). His father would invite a different professional to dinner every night. The father and the guest would talk shop during dinner and the kids would learn bits here and there.

That's what I consider the Dope. It puts me in touch with people that I'd never have access to on a very personal, yet professional, level. Hell, I cut my teeth in Great Debates when it came to the Dope. Much learning and debate done in there. Politics gets in the way a lot, but I like politics.

This all comes back to you, though. With your expertise, you help make us smarter and better. Everyone's igorance is fought, then.

[Mighty_Girl]

Emotionally, what type of cases are the harder to handle? Or are they all just as tough to swallow?

And please stay, I'll pay for your membership. I am a HUGE fan of forensic shows (preferably of the "real life" type).

[gabriela]

Wow. Do you get emotionally involved very often (no, I didn't mean romantically, you sick fucks). I'm sure you build up a wall after a while...but does it get to you sometimes?

I don't get romantically involved with ... Hey, I'm not going there. Just not going there.

I have a huge wall that protects me from most things. When something breaches that wall, it's bad. Child abuse sometimes breaches it; the result is anger, but I can control it and I can still do my job scientifically and professionally. Real horrible things that humans do to other humans while they are alive, followed by their death, sometimes breaches it; the result is worse than anger, sort of a sick despair and weakness that interferes with doing the job.

Things that humans do to other humans after the victims are dead don't get to me. Cut off the hands and feet, I'm okay with that, so long as the victim was dead first. Also, smells don't get to me unless they are so bad that you don't want to think about how bad that is.

I had a real horrible case in Memphis many years ago that really got to me. I came in late to work the next day (unlike me). A white haired county sheriff was standing there, waiting to talk to me. I apologized for being late, but said with a tremor that the case the day before had been so awful that I had had to go out and get drunk last night.

He looked me right in the eye and said in that Tennessee rural drawl that is so effective with satire and humor, "I know just what you mean. Just in case, I go out and git drunk every night."

I laughed so hard at myself I quit feeling pity party for poor me. (Hey, she's the victim, I didn't suffer.)

I think our gross and twisted humor does a lot to protect us from having it get to us.

[gabriela]

Emotionally, what type of cases are the harder to handle? Or are they all just as tough to swallow?

And please stay, I'll pay for your membership. I am a HUGE fan of forensic shows (preferably of the "real life" type).

Child abuse.

I was well taught by - wait - I can't say people's names, right? Anyway, she was a senior fellow when I was a junior fellow in NYC at the Manhattan OCME. One week she was swearing because the fourth beaten and shaken baby had come in over ten days, and she had done the first three, and she was saying, "I can't do another one. I won't. I'm not gonna. It's not fair to me."

She got someone else to do it.

Then she taught me on my first one how to butterfly the ribs to look for intercostal hemorrhages. She was good. I mean, gooood.

I think she's a chief somewhere now.

Child abuse is probably the roughest.

I got the money, thanks so much for your - um - butter. I just don't got the time at home, or the right at work.

[twickster]

Well, if my very existence is so awe-inspiring -- how about I make it a direct order that you join? Think of the sig line you could have!

[gabriela]

Well, if my very existence is so awe-inspiring -- how about I make it a direct order that you join? Think of the sig line you could have!

(Abashed with too much awe, slinks away from the Presence)

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Butter! More butter!!
This woman needs a thorough butterin', and by god, we're not gonna stop butterin until she's all slathered up and relents!

[Mighty_Girl]

I got the money, thanks so much for your - um - butter. I just don't got the time at home, or the right at work.Oh, c'mon woman, stop playing hard to get. Don't make us beg.





Please... Please, PLEASE!


Has anyone ever been buttered up to death? :D

[YaWanna]

Have you read any of Patricia Cornwell's novels, and if so, what do you think of them?

No, I don't watch shows or read books about my profession - there don't seem to be many about accountants (just jokes about how boring we are). But I seem to have a slight obsession with the whole murder genre, especially the psychological side of it (profiling, etc.).

And I really appreciate that you opened this thread, and wish you'd stay permanently, also.

[Faruiza]

I don't watch any of the crime dramas on TV...I'm stuck to 24 and that's it. You can pry it out of my cold dead hands...(heh!)

But I am absolutely fascinated with medical thrillers and true crime books. Everybody but my forensic anthropologist friend makes fun of me for being a little sick on that...but I digress.

What I came here to say was that I don't normally get in on the oh please threads, but I'm telling you that you really ought to. Even if you do have VERY little time to contribute, we will be richer for your contribution. If it's money, we got that covered. If you're afraid you'll get too involved, we will find a way to schedule an intervention. Just do it, ok? Thanks.

:D

[gabriela]

Have you read any of Patricia Cornwell's novels, and if so, what do you think of them?

No, I don't watch shows or read books about my profession - there don't seem to be many about accountants (just jokes about how boring we are). But I seem to have a slight obsession with the whole murder genre, especially the psychological side of it (profiling, etc.).

And I really appreciate that you opened this thread, and wish you'd stay permanently, also.

Patsy Cornwall got her first job in forensics from my chief, on whom Kay Scarpetta is loosely based.

Emotionally I think Kay is closer to Patsy than to my chief. My chief is gutsy as all gut buckets. And has been known to say she thinks senators give her money for her budget just to get her off the phone. And has an appetite for confrontation. And has a mean emphysematous laugh. Forty years in forensics and she can't give up smoking the coffin nails.

I read some of the early ones, and damn the forensics was good and right, but the characters bothered me. All the minor characters were alive alive o, but the main character didn't touch me. Weird.

The later ones just seem to get bizarrer and bizarrer; I haven't dipped in.

Patsy did something administrative and then something investigative at the main office; she was never a forensic pathologist. She didn't handle bodies. But she still gets the forensic stuff right. Got. Haven't read them in years but would bet she still does.

[gabriela]

Oh, c'mon woman, stop playing hard to get. Don't make us beg.





Please... Please, PLEASE!


Has anyone ever been buttered up to death? :D

Last Tango in Paris?

<snork>

All right, all right, people! If I were to give up the three hundred painfully acquired nickels and subscribe from home, how would I go about keeping my SD name Gabriela?

Has anybody ever signed off as a guest from one account, and tried to sign on as a paying member from another account with the guest name? How does one go about doing that? I cannot sign up from work.

[gabriela]

I don't watch any of the crime dramas on TV...I'm stuck to 24 and that's it. You can pry it out of my cold dead hands...(heh!)

But I am absolutely fascinated with medical thrillers and true crime books. Everybody but my forensic anthropologist friend makes fun of me for being a little sick on that...but I digress.

What I came here to say was that I don't normally get in on the oh please threads, but I'm telling you that you really ought to. Even if you do have VERY little time to contribute, we will be richer for your contribution. If it's money, we got that covered. If you're afraid you'll get too involved, we will find a way to schedule an intervention. Just do it, ok? Thanks.

:D

You ever read the 500-plus brief replies to the descriptions of 24 on the Dave Barry Blog?
(uh - is it done to refer to other blogs on this the Almightiest of All Message Boards, particularly if the other blog is mere entertainment?)

His Daveness seems to unite a sincere addiction to 24 with a queasy disbelief in his own sincere addiction to 24.

Schedule the intervention now. Obviously.

[Hal Briston]

Butter! More butter!!
This woman needs a thorough butterin', and by god, we're not gonna stop butterin until she's all slathered up and relents!Well, the local PathMark had a "buy-one get-one" sale on these massive tubs of Shedd's Spread Country Crock this week. Now we've got about a year's supply, so I could part with one of the tubs if it'll get gabriela to stick around.

In other words: Join up, damnit!

[gabriela]

Well, the local PathMark had a "buy-one get-one" sale on these massive tubs of Shedd's Spread Country Crock this week. Now we've got about a year's supply, so I could part with one of the tubs if it'll get gabriela to stick around.

In other words: Join up, damnit!

I think I'm honored at being addressed by the great Hal Briston, but the Shedd's context makes me a little ... uncomfortable.

Sir, could you address my question, above, of how one signs off as a guest from a work account, and signs on as a paying member from a home account with the same Straight Dope name?

Also, would it be all right if I just did an autopsy on the goat? I'm not much for, um. Parties. Year's supply of Shedd's. That kind of thing.

[Faruiza]

You ever read the 500-plus brief replies to the descriptions of 24 on the Dave Barry Blog?
Can't say that I have...I'm afraid to. That would limit my time here!

(uh - is it done to refer to other blogs on this the Almightiest of All Message Boards, particularly if the other blog is mere entertainment?)
Yeah. It's ok as long as you're not dragging some drama around. Heck, sometimes that's where we get our best entertainment.

His Daveness seems to unite a sincere addiction to 24 with a queasy disbelief in his own sincere addiction to 24.
HA! I did NOT know that! That makes me feel tons better, since yesterday I found out that I share my obsession with Rush Limbaugh, and I think he's a pompous windbag. "Pompous Windbag" being of course the worst insult I could afford him in MPSIMS, but if this were the pit, I'd do worse...if I gave enough of a shit. :D

Schedule the intervention now. Obviously.
Hot DOG!! So glad we could convince you!
So people, what day is good for you? Have you got time for an intervention say, June of 2009?

[Omegaman]

I heven't been that long so my opinion doesn't carry the weight of a 99 'r but persons of your experience don't grow on trees you know ! I particularly enjoyed your post in
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=362838

Give it some thought -- you would be missed ~

[Celyn]

................. could you address my question, above, of how one signs off as a guest from a work account, and signs on as a paying member from a home account with the same Straight Dope name?
.................
.

I nonestly don't see that there is a problem there. Go to home computer, sign on using your name and password .... pay money ..... then you are a member from whatever computer you happen to be using.

[gabriela]

I heven't been that long so my opinion doesn't carry the weight of a 99 'r but persons of your experience don't grow on trees you know ! I particularly enjoyed your post in
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=362838

Give it some thought -- you would be missed ~

I am getting a swelled head.

[gabriela]

.

I nonestly don't see that there is a problem there. Go to home computer, sign on using your name and password .... pay money ..... then you are a member from whatever computer you happen to be using.

Um... password?

No password for guests.

It just recognizes me when I open up the Dope. Welcome, Gabriela, you were last here too goddamn recently, what the hell are you doing here again, looking for more compliments?

[gabriela]

Hot DOG!! So glad we could convince you!
So people, what day is good for you? Have you got time for an intervention say, June of 2009?

Tease.

How about June of 2006.

[twickster]

Has anybody ever signed off as a guest from one account, and tried to sign on as a paying member from another account with the guest name? How does one go about doing that? I cannot sign up from work.

Pay up from the work machine, using your credit card; you will then be a member, and can sign in from any machine. I've left myself signed in on both my work and home machines (could someone remind me to log out from here next Friday before I quit? I don't need no stinkin' ovine rep around here...), and it's not a problem.

[Jackknifed Juggernaut]

What is the general view of you and your colleagues on Dr. Michael Baden? He seems to be the one forensic pathologist who is a household name.

[gabriela]

Pay up from the work machine, using your credit card; you will then be a member, and can sign in from any machine. I've left myself signed in on both my work and home machines (could someone remind me to log out from here next Friday before I quit? I don't need no stinkin' ovine rep around here...), and it's not a problem.

Uh, Great One, I will be in mucho trouble if I pay up from the work machine. We are not supposed to get our credit cards anywhere near these accounts. A number of employees were fired last year for shopping.

Alternate suggestions?

[gabriela]

What is the general view of you and your colleagues on Dr. Michael Baden? He seems to be the one forensic pathologist who is a household name.

I can't answer that in public.

[twickster]

Uh, Great One, I will be in mucho trouble if I pay up from the work machine. We are not supposed to get our credit cards anywhere near these accounts. A number of employees were fired last year for shopping.

Alternate suggestions?

Try logging in from home this weekend and see what happens. I think it's possible you did create a password and just don't remember it.

[gabriela]

Try logging in from home this weekend and see what happens. I think it's possible you did create a password and just don't remember it.

Thanks, I will.
Hey, I'm almost getting used to having you address me.

[twickster]

Thanks, I will.
Hey, I'm almost getting used to having you address me.

:p

[Mighty_Girl]

Log in from home using gabriela and your password (if you don't remember your password you can ask it to be emailed to you when you are signing in). Once you sign in click on subscribe at the top menu and voila. My offer still stands to sponsor you, if you let me have the honor you will have to email me your username and password, once I pay I'll email you back and you can change your password to something else.

Thanks for staying. We need smart people like you here to serve as a balance to people like me.

[OtakuLoki]

gabriela, pleased to meet you. And now that I've got the butter-gun all filled up and pressurized, you go and make it unecessary. Rats. Haven't gotten to lube up anyone since, oh, last nultday.

I really don't have any more questions for you, but I'm glad you're thinking about staying. This is a fascinating thread - I enjoy the 'real' forensic science shows, so having your view is very appealing. (Can't stand CSI - it irks me too much. I'm not in the field, but I knew enough to see most of the errors you'd mentioned.)

On second thought: what was the most surprising case you dealt with? I don't mean the grossest things you've seen, I'm thinking more those things you least expected to find. I'm afraid that the broken rib baby you'd expected to be SIDS might be it, but I'm hoping for a less despressing answer.

[Mighty_Girl]

And speaking of buttering up: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=363458

[Mighty_Girl]

And another question, why do forensic experts on CSI interview suspects and offer them deals? Isn't that the police job and the prosecution? How much interaction do you have with perps, if any?

[Least Original User Name Ever]

:p


Geez, gabriela , and YOU think you're getting a swelled head...


put that noggin away, twickster. you're like a freakin grapefruit on a toothpick!

[clairobscur]

Is it true that people with an interesting expertise who refuse to sign up on the SD often end up on a pathologist's table with horrific wounds of unknown origin, generally including tentacle marks and mysterious rays' burns?




Seriously, my niece is seemingly interested in becoming a forensic. Why is it a very good idea? Why is it a very bad idea?

[carnivorousplant]

Is it true that people with an interesting expertise who refuse to sign up on the SD often end up on a pathologist's table with horrific wounds of unknown origin, generally including tentacle marks and mysterious rays' burns?


Well, yes, but remember those who sign up and the goat...

[ivylass]

I can't answer that in public.

Oh, you have to sign up, just to explain this!!

[carnivorousplant]

Oh, you have to sign up, just to explain this!!

Can you people suck up, or what? :rolleyes:

[Tomcat]

If the password thing doesn't work, just sign up with a capital G (and ask the mods to change it if the lower case g makes you feel snuggly).

How do you deal with the smell? What is that stuff people put on their upper lip? I saw a show in London about forensics and one of them said strawberry ice cream helped...which made me go :dubious:

What poisonings have you dealt with? I forget where I read it, but a forensic scientist (what do you call yourself colloquially?) said that in all her years doing the job she had never encountered a poisoner that confessed to it. Something about the psychology of that form of killing someone was hand-in-hand with lying about it.

Any unique cases?

Tell us your vote(s) for Darwin Award from cases you've been part of, please.

You mention your sense of humor a few times...does these lead into any pranks?

Thanks!

-Tcat

[Osip]

Uh, Great One, I will be in mucho trouble if I pay up from the work machine. We are not supposed to get our credit cards anywhere near these accounts. A number of employees were fired last year for shopping.

Alternate suggestions?

You have got to stay. Your flooding me with my memories of good old college days.
I studied with Bill Bass in Knoxville :)

Saw him while he was in town last week!

I am kind of wondering what I would be doing now has I not changed directions in my life.

If your registering and the powers that be allow it, I can and would gladly couch up the pocket change to keep you here on the boards. For a small token of your appreciation. Maybe a Mpsims thread "Osip is good, Osip is great, Yeah Osip!"

will check back later, I have to go give a demo and class at the local high school on how to stab people with style! (Digrassi and Silver to be exact, for those in the know)

Osip

Ps you can also contact me via e-mail is in my board profile.

[ivylass]

gabriela, pleased to meet you. And now that I've got the butter-gun all filled up and pressurized, you go and make it unecessary.

Skid....SMACK....Ouch!!

OtakuLoki! Your butter gun is leaking butter all over the floor! I just slipped in it! Can't you be more careful? You can kill someone with that thing!!

and gabriela can autopsy them.... :D

[Hilarity N. Suze]

gabriela--

Hey, good to see the "Member" designation under your name!

Now I have a question. How cold are those bodies in the cooler?

[gabriela]

gabriela--

Hey, good to see the "Member" designation under your name!

Now I have a question. How cold are those bodies in the cooler?

Wow, somebody bumped my thread!

I thought it was long gone.

Whoa, pontification opportunity. Reverse chron order to thank Hil for bumping me and welcoming me.

Hilarity darling, they are the same temperature as meat in your refrigerator. Forty degrees F or so. We don't actually freeze them. Ever tried to put a knife into frozen meat?

Also, a funny thing about really freezing bodes: they don't decompose while they're frozen, but once they start warming up, they go really fast. Like, sometimes, while you're still autopsying them.

I once had to autopsy a lady whose son shot her and put her in the freezer - I mention this only because the case has been adjudicated. We started the autopsy while she was still partially frozen. it wasn't fun. But at least we beat the onset of decomposition.

Even a person who's been in the cooler for 36 hours (say got shot late Saturday night and we don't start the autopsy until Monday morning) can be so cool to the touch that I have to keep running my gloved hands under warm water during the autopsy. So I'm really glad 40 F is our lower limit.

[gabriela]

You have got to stay. Your flooding me with my memories of good old college days.
I studied with Bill Bass in Knoxville :)

Saw him while he was in town last week!

If you studied with Bill Bass, I bet the memories that flooded you were olfactory.

Maybe a Mpsims thread "Osip is good, Osip is great, Yeah Osip!"

You mean I have to start swelling other people's heads?

will check back later, I have to go give a demo and class at the local high school on how to stab people with style! (Digrassi and Silver to be exact, for those in the know)


Ooh! Ooh! Tell us how to stab people with style. (I only know about how they've been stabbed. No expertise on how to do it!) I recall one autopsy my colleague did which I read over for her - twenty-six stab wounds and only one of them fatal. We said we thought the guy oughta have been sent to stab wound training first. And here you add style.

[gabriela]

If the password thing doesn't work, just sign up with a capital G (and ask the mods to change it if the lower case g makes you feel snuggly).

How do you deal with the smell? What is that stuff people put on their upper lip? I saw a show in London about forensics and one of them said strawberry ice cream helped...which made me go :dubious:

The wintergreen they put on their upper lip is worse than useless. It opens the nasal passages wider. It's more of a placebo the cops use to help themselves stand the idea of it.

There is only one thing you can do with the smell. Get a clipboard and a diagram, and go stand as close to the body as you can make yourself without upchucking. Work on diagramming the body so you have something to think about other than the smell for two and a half minutes. Your nose will gradually stop perceiving the smell as strongly. When you can, sidle closer. You never stop smelling it entirely, but your nose goes dead and you can handle it. Do not move away from the body for the entire time you're working with it. If you need something, have someone else get it for you. If you move away into fresher air, your nose re-sensitizes and you have to start all over again.

The rookie cops will run in and out of the room "to get a breath of fresh air" and it hits them so hard when they come back. Meanwhile some fifty-year-old female forensic tech is sitting with the body at its head, and they think she is so macho. She is, but what it is, she knows about keeping her nose dead.

[gabriela]

If the password thing doesn't work, just sign up with a capital G (and ask the mods to change it if the lower case g makes you feel snuggly).

How do you deal with the smell? What is that stuff people put on their upper lip? I saw a show in London about forensics and one of them said strawberry ice cream helped...which made me go :dubious:

Forgot to say: snuggly - aww. Snuggling the forensic pathologist, aww cuddly!
Strawberry ice cream - hunh? Hunh? What? Hunh?

What poisonings have you dealt with? I forget where I read it, but a forensic scientist (what do you call yourself colloquially?) said that in all her years doing the job she had never encountered a poisoner that confessed to it. Something about the psychology of that form of killing someone was hand-in-hand with lying about it.

I think that was my boss, the great Marcella Fierro, and the head of the Department of Forensic Sciences, being interviewed together; we had the article up on our bulletin board for awile. Where was that article published? Nat Geographic? Something.

I see almost no poisonings (assuming you don't count self-administered overdoses of Oxycontin and cocaine). Most people nowadays who want to kill someone use quick violent methods like guns and knives. Even blunt trauma bludgeonings are comparatively rare. Don't believe I've ever had a homicidal poisoning. Does insulin count?

Any unique cases?

This'll be a future thread.

Tell us your vote(s) for Darwin Award from cases you've been part of, please.

Hundreds of them. We call them "stupicides". How about this one: steal your grandfather's car and drive it off at a high rate of speed... though the Club (TM) is across the steering wheel.

You mention your sense of humor a few times...does these lead into any pranks?[/QUOTE]

The cops tend to get into pranks more than the docs do. Cops will do things like lying down inside a clean body bag waiting for the rookies to come in the room. But the absolutely meanest are the forensic techs. Who don't do body-related pranks: we're all pretty immune to thrills n chills. Who do things like waiting until one of the docs is selling her car, then buying a container of antifreeze, going out into the parking lot, and pouring a puddle of it underneath the chassis.

[gabriela]

Can you people suck up, or what? :rolleyes:

I feel the draft from here!

Hey, they sucked me onto the boards!

[gabriela]

Oh, you have to sign up, just to explain this!!

Ivylass, whose name I love, I am so sorry, but this is still public. Just because ain't no one here but us chickens doesn't mean people aren't looking over the shoulders of the chickens.

If chickens have shoulders.

Gabriela's Man offered me one guide when he watched me sign up: "Don't put anything here you wouldn't want to see quoted against you in a homicide trial."

If I ever see you in person, be glad to regale you with stories.

[gabriela]

Well, yes, but remember those who sign up and the goat...

Too late. My goat's been gotten endless times.

[gabriela]

Is it true that people with an interesting expertise who refuse to sign up on the SD often end up on a pathologist's table with horrific wounds of unknown origin, generally including tentacle marks and mysterious rays' burns?

(evil henchman grin)


Seriously, my niece is seemingly interested in becoming a forensic. Why is it a very good idea? Why is it a very bad idea?

Beautiful name. Clairobscur. Chiaroscuro.

Interested in becoming a forensic what? Pathologist? Technician? Scientist? Anthropologist? Very different career paths.

[gabriela]

And another question, why do forensic experts on CSI interview suspects and offer them deals? Isn't that the police job and the prosecution? How much interaction do you have with perps, if any?

They do it because it makes a grand story. NEVER happens in real life. NEVER.

Do you know it is not a crime to lie to a forensic pathologist, but it is a felony to lie to a police officer in the course of an investigation?

That's why, when people call us up all grumbly and say, "We think our aged grandpa's death from cancer was brought on by his girlfriend and she killed him," we say, "Ma'am, sir, if you really think so, you need to go to the police." If they're willing to say it to a police officer, we're willing to do the autopsy that will show that his was a totally natural death from cancer. If they're not, we're not.

Silliest one of those I ever dealt with was a sincere man in his mid-thirties who was quite sure his aged grandma who died in bed had been killed by his brother. He had a whole array of nonsensical reasons (she always put her prayer cap on before praying, but when she was found dead in bed, her Bible was open but her prayer cap wasn't on! Wow! Major clue there! Call Law and Order!). His real reason, however, and it always comes down to money, was that he suspected his brother of stealing her Social Security checks.

I pointed out that in that case, his brother was the last person who would want her dead. Supply dries up.

He got agitated, and confided to me, "My brother has studied strange martial arts, and I suspect that he killed her in one of those ways that leaves no mark."

I said, "Sir, if it leaves no mark, then there will be no mark." Exactly what do you expect me to find at autopsy, you doofus? A mark of leaving no mark? Exotic Chinese characters inscribed inside her nose?

I did the autopsy. She died of heart disease. I couldn't help wishing I could add ... "and some strange force that left no mark".

gabriela

[gabriela]

Geez, gabriela , and YOU think you're getting a swelled head...


put that noggin away, twickster. you're like a freakin grapefruit on a toothpick!

I just have to say I laughed on and off for two hours at the grapefruit on a toothpick.

It has not in the slightest decreased my respect for Twickster.

[Shirley Ujest]

I am late to this johnny pile, but I wanted to say Welcome ! to gabriela and I am very happy you joined up!


Now, onto serious questions:

Is there a standard personality that seems to be attracted to your field of employment ? Do you have conventions? What are those like?

Also, while I think gabriela is a perfectly lovely user name, I think you could have picked I See Dead People.. harumphf

[gabriela]

I am late to this johnny pile, but I wanted to say Welcome ! to gabriela and I am very happy you joined up!


Now, onto serious questions:

Is there a standard personality that seems to be attracted to your field of employment ? Do you have conventions? What are those like?

Also, while I think gabriela is a perfectly lovely user name, I think you could have picked I See Dead People.. harumphf

Oh my God. Oh my God. Shirley Ujest wrote to me. To me. Personally.

(gapes flabbergastedly for two or three minutes)

And welcomed me!!!

Shirley, you - uh. (Turns around three times. Gazes at wall)

Maybe I better just answer the question.

No standard personality. We tend to be a bit on the outrageous side for docs. But we have to pass through the pathologist filter first, which selects for quiet, academic, obsessive-compulsive people. So we're all a little weird.

I was once offered a chance to buy in on some hats the forensic dept of a local police agency was buying. Baseball caps that said "I See Dead People". I thought it over and said, you know, I'd rather have one that says "I See Live People".

[yingtongtiddleipo]

Hi gabriela - welcome!

Hope you don't mind answering a few of my questions.. Feel free not too, as I appear to have got a bit carried away...

Since you've become a forensic pathologist, has it changed any of your personal habits? Do you drive more slowly? Eat healthier?

Forensic anthropologist V Forensic pathologist - can you be both? What are the differences in how they work/who they work for? 'Cause I've been watching 'Bones' (h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s) and want one of those 3d imagey thingys. As I'm sure you would!

In movies/tv its an oft-repeated theme, how people are declared dead and go to the morgue only to not be dead and wake up. HUH? I find this really hard to believe - but does it happen in real life? How? Why?

Dealing with death everyday - what effect has this had on your beliefs/spirituality? Are you a parent? Does this affect your point of view?

Stories/Anecdotes/Personal experiences please - you must have some beauties!

Tell me about your first autopsy and if/how it was different than your expectations.

My brother has just become a Policeman (in Scotland) Any advice I can pass on to him?

(Already passed on the dead nose tip - thanks!)

[gabriela]

Is there a standard personality that seems to be attracted to your field of employment ? Do you have conventions? What are those like?

Uh, uh, I was so in awe of the mountain of 13,000+ posts that I forgot to read the question.

We have conventions. They are tax deductible bastions of weirdness.

"One Hundred Hangings before Breakfast"
"Forensic Anthropology of Intercourse with the Foramen Magnum of the Skull"
"Bestiality with Horses Involving Whipped Cream"

no, seriously! That one was packed out!

"Tom Krauss Memorial Bite Mark Breakfast"
"Fetus Stuck in a Toilet: Autopsy of Plumbing"
"Guns that Fire Themselves: Three Fatal Cases"
- oh, sorry: that last one was me. I love giving talks at these things.

We wander around in suits and dresses trying to look responsible for a day, then everyone reverts to shorts and tees. And we have great conversations in the hallways.

The public is not allowed in. To keep the journalists out.

I gotta pack it in - time to go to work. Wonder who's died today?

gabriela

[gabriela]

Hi gabriela - welcome!

Hope you don't mind answering a few of my questions.. Feel free not too, as I appear to have got a bit carried away...

...

(Already passed on the dead nose tip - thanks!)

Yingtong, I gotta go to work, catch you again many hours from now.

May I just say, in reference to your name:

"April in Paris,
Here comes a Charlie"

Silly boy. You can't shoot me with that. It's a banana.
BLAM
You cad! It was loaded!

[twickster]

Yay! gabriela signed up! Honest to god, I was thinking just this morning that I hadn't seen you again since last week.

One of us! One of us!

[yingtongtiddleipo]

Yingtong, I gotta go to work, catch you again many hours from now.

May I just say, in reference to your name:

"April in Paris,
Here comes a Charlie"

Silly boy. You can't shoot me with that. It's a banana.
BLAM
You cad! It was loaded!


<<<BEAMS>>>> yay!! someone gets me -someone finally gets me!!

Have a good day with the dead goods. *ahem*

[Shirley Ujest]

Oh my God. Oh my God. Shirley Ujest wrote to me. To me. Personally.

(gapes flabbergastedly for two or three minutes)

And welcomed me!!!

Shirley, you - uh. (Turns around three times. Gazes at wall)




Shirley Ujest Fan Club Offical Membership Count: One


:D

[aruvqan]

You know, we're going to SO butter you up until you relent and join.

You might as well save us the time AND the butter.
but the goat *likes* butter

[Tomcat]

Yep, National Geographic. Neat article.

You cool. Welcome!

-Tcat

[phall0106]

Welcome gabriela!

This is one of the most cool threads I've read in awhile. Of course, now my friends have confirmed that I'm truly weird for conveying my newly aquired knowledge of what happens to the skin of a floating body...

Oh, and Shirley count me as number two.

[ryobserver]

"Forensic Anthropology of Intercourse with the Foramen Magnum of the Skull"
My. God. DAMN. I've heard of "skullfucking" but I thought it was just an expression. Of course, "ass reaming" and "ball busting" are also just expressions, most of the time.

"Bestiality with Horses Involving Whipped Cream"

no, seriously! That one was packed out!
That one WHAT was packed out? Oh, never mind...

I'm glad you joined, Gabriela; I think you're going to fit in well here.

[What Exit?]

Welcome to the Board gabriela, What a great and interesting Introductory thread. I think you will make a very welcomed addition to the SDMB.
Maybe you can do one piece of research for us, suffer through one episode of CSI Miami and tell us how awful it is from the Realism point of view.
I imagine you might need to employ the same approach you do to a dead body, get steadily closer, but keep your brain dead to it rather than your nose.

Jim

[TubaDiva]

This is great fun. Glad you decided to join our reindeer games.

And I bet we have a friend in common . . . do you know Arthur Young?

(The guy we bug for all our DNA queries. Among other things.)

TubaDiva

[Hamadryad]

Shirley Ujest Fan Club Offical Membership Count: One


:DHEY!! She's number 2.

[Least Original User Name Ever]

but the goat *likes* butter
And Hal likes sheep...what's your point?

Now that my buttering has worked and you've caved in to my amazingly absurd demands ....just like the REST of your female brethren....waitaminit..that makes no sense... we can start breaking you into other silly threads.

Are there any ethical dilemmas you've had to encounter recently? Yes, it's a broad question, but the leeway is there for your discretion. How did such things get handled? Did they ever get handled?



twickster's head's so big, she wraps it with a white cloth for movies at the drive through!

:D (love me, twickster...I love youuuuuuuuuu )

[eleanorigby]

Hi, gabriela --great thread and I'm glad you decided to take the plunge.

You trained in Memphis or worked in Memphis? Just asking, 'cause my Dad is pathologist in Memphis--not forensic, though (although he does alot of consulting)....

Also, you didn't mention forensic nursing--a field that is growing quickly.


Glad to read your take on Scarpetta--I also stopped reading her books once I cottoned onto Kay always has to be in danger, no matter what.....<yawn>

Nobody asked this yet, so I will: what do you think of Quincy? (old TV show about a ME).

No goats here--just a :)

[faithfool]

gabriela, this thread is incredibly fascinating and I'm another who is beyond thrilled that you've joined. I'll certainly be looking forward to reading more of your posts around the board, especially on a subject that we all apparently wish to view through you with voyeuristic glee. :)

Now, here's my niche' question(s) please....

Do you handle many suicides? If so, what method is the largest variety you typically see? Is there a preponderance in a specific age range? One sex over another? Ethnicity? Or any other identifiers that would lump them into groups (like, in my case, people who suffer from mental illness), etc.

And with that I'll stop. That's probably way too much babbling anyway. But I thank you very much for taking the time and patience to do this. It's awesome! So therefore, I'll go and eagerly await your return. Your latest information and stories will be a good prelude into a couple of re-runned episodes with Mr. D'Onofrio.

[Rick]

I just want to add my congratulations, and thanks for joining up.
If you are at work and some strange person shows up with a goat, or you see tentacles I suggest you run like hell. :D

[Martian Bigfoot]

I did this once on a radio show in Tennessee. I still remember the two questions I got: do fingernails grow after death, and do women have eleven or twelve ribs? Sheesh.

The last one has always bugged me. If Eve was created from Adam's rib, shouldn't Adam be the one to have an odd number of ribs?

So... do men have eleven or twelve ribs? ;)

[Pazu]

Hooray! Another pathologist on the boards!! :D

Do you know anyone at the San Francisco ME's office?

[gabriela]

Maybe you can do one piece of research for us, suffer through one episode of CSI Miami and tell us how awful it is from the Realism point of view.
I imagine you might need to employ the same approach you do to a dead body, get steadily closer, but keep your brain dead to it rather than your nose.

Jim

SNORK!

Sorry, I cannot make myself go near the television when CSI: Miami is on.

[gabriela]

This is great fun. Glad you decided to join our reindeer games.

And I bet we have a friend in common . . . do you know Arthur Young?

(The guy we bug for all our DNA queries. Among other things.)

TubaDiva

Oh. My. God.

Oh. My. God.

TUBADIVA spoke to me!

(runs away leaking tears of emotion)

[gabriela]

HEY!! She's number 2.

Uh. Could I be number 3?

[gabriela]

And Hal likes sheep...what's your point?

Now that my buttering has worked and you've caved in to my amazingly absurd demands ....just like the REST of your female brethren....waitaminit..that makes no sense... we can start breaking you into other silly threads.

Are there any ethical dilemmas you've had to encounter recently? Yes, it's a broad question, but the leeway is there for your discretion. How did such things get handled? Did they ever get handled?



twickster's head's so big, she wraps it with a white cloth for movies at the drive through!

:D (love me, twickster...I love youuuuuuuuuu )

Sometimes, to tell or not to tell - A family member is not always entitled to an autopsy report. It goes by strict state law as to next of kin. Spouse first; if no spouse, grown children; if no grown children, parents; if no parents, sister or brother. Well, suppose X has died at nineteen under suspicious circumstances with her husband present, and he is feuding with his mother-in-law. There is no sign of murder, but the cause of death isn't at all clear. The girl's mother is desperate for info. Do you tell or don't you tell?

How about if the dead person is an infant, the mother is a suspect but has not been arrested, and she calls wanting to know what you found?

What do you do with the newspapers?

Suppose a dead child is Jewish and it looks like she has died from an epidemic that is sweeping the town. Everyone in town is frantic - this is a real case, by the way - but no autopsy on the five children who have died so far has yet shown a cause of death. There is a real public health need for info. Father and mother do not want autopsy on religious grounds. Right decision?

What about money found on dead people? Jewelry? We have a shining history of perfectly honest dealings in our office, but you know, when a forensic tech is earning $10 an hour, he's alone in the back, he's undressing a decomposed guy who has been living in a FEMA trailer after a flood, no one in the world knows if or how much money the dead guy has on him, and he finds $5000 in hundred dollar bills with only the outer one soaked with decomp juice, it's gotta be a temptation.

He turned it all in. Every one. Photographed them in the wad and as he pulled them out and laid them down on the counter. Family never gave him a dime in reward. We gave him a commendation and the State gave him an extra vacation day. Big deal.

[gabriela]

gabriela, this thread is incredibly fascinating and I'm another who is beyond thrilled that you've joined. I'll certainly be looking forward to reading more of your posts around the board, especially on a subject that we all apparently wish to view through you with voyeuristic glee. :)

Awww...


Do you handle many suicides? If so, what method is the largest variety you typically see? Is there a preponderance in a specific age range? One sex over another? Ethnicity? Or any other identifiers that would lump them into groups (like, in my case, people who suffer from mental illness), etc.

Hundreds. About a fifth of our 600+ autopsies a year are suicides. (About 130 are homicides.) We probably view (meaning examine but do not autopsy) a hundred more. We autopsy all the ones who used guns, which is the vast majority of them. This is unique to Virginia - I mean the autopsying: many jurisdictions don't bother to autopsy gunshot wound suicides. Virginia does because of a chief-level policy decision after a "homicide-suicide" case turned out to be a homicide-homicide that had to be exhumed. Exhumed bodies have a special stink all their own.

Southerners have a real tendency to use guns when they want to die. When I worked in New York City, jumping off tall buildings was way commoner. Not many buildings in Virginia tall enough. Hanging is also very common. We see very few suicidal overdoses. I've seen one count'em one suicide by combined Viagra and cocaine. Talk about a way to go!

Age range - Two: young and old. Young people typically commit suicide over disappointment in romance, while drunk, and impulsively. They can give you "cluster" suicides if a suicide is published a lot with a lot of attention and sympathy. Old people typically commit suicide over serious health problems in themselves or their spouse. They plan it with great care, they are not drunk, it is not impulsive, and it's almost impossible to stop.

More men than women. More whites than blacks. We don't have enough Hispanics or Asians here to draw valid conclusions.

Psych history does contribute, but it's usually a history of depression, which of course is a risk factor for suicide. Not sure if there would be any actual increase in schizos and so forth if you took the depressed people out of it. I am so sorry to hear you struggle with it. Tell us sometimes what a day is like for you. I would like to know.

[gabriela]

I just want to add my congratulations, and thanks for joining up.
If you are at work and some strange person shows up with a goat, or you see tentacles I suggest you run like hell. :D

What, like that's not every day?

[gabriela]

The last one has always bugged me. If Eve was created from Adam's rib, shouldn't Adam be the one to have an odd number of ribs?

So... do men have eleven or twelve ribs? ;)

You, personally, have eleven.

[pravnik]

"Forensic Anthropology of Intercourse with the Foramen Magnum of the Skull"Crap, they're on to me!
"Bestiality with Horses Involving Whipped Cream"Crap!!

[ivylass]

gabriela! I'm so happy you joined!

Do you testify in court? If so, have you found the so-called "CSI effect," where juries expect things to be the way they see on TV? And if yes, how do you counteract that?

If you don't testify in court, how do your colleagues who do handle the CSI effect?

[YaWanna]

Yay! gabriela's staying! She's staying! :does happy dance, which looks remarkably like Snoopy dance, except with wild red hair:

I can't think of any cool questions right now, I'm just happy you're a member! You are, like, so cool! :cool:

[Mighty_Girl]

Isn't there something strange that we are elated that someone who deals with decomposing corpses has joined The Dope? We sure weren't that happy the last time we got an accountant.

We're a weird bunch.

[YaWanna]

Isn't there something strange that we are elated that someone who deals with decomposing corpses has joined The Dope? We sure weren't that happy the last time we got an accountant.

Oh, man, that hurt. :(

[twickster]

Isn't there something strange that we are elated that someone who deals with decomposing corpses has joined The Dope? We sure weren't that happy the last time we got an accountant.

We're a weird bunch.
"Weird" is so ... judgmental.

"Eccentric," perhaps.

BTW, there's such a profession as "forensic accountant" -- ya think they'd have any interesting stories to tell?

Nah, I don't think so either.

[carnivorousplant]

We sure weren't that happy the last time we got an accountant.

Or an engineer.

Now, I would get really excited about a shrink.
That fella would be usefull for you folks.
Er, we folks. :)

[Least Original User Name Ever]

Isn't there something strange that we are elated that someone who deals with decomposing corpses has joined The Dope? We sure weren't that happy the last time we got an accountant.

We're a weird bunch.

...or a college student.

Waitaminit, lemme sweeten the deal....

*ahem*
....or a charmingly handsome college student.

twicks , there's your opening to ask what I did with such a student...

[Least Original User Name Ever]

(psst..gabriela , bonus points to the new member if you defend me before twicks or some other hoodum tarnishes my sterling image)

[Least Original User Name Ever]

(psst..gabriela , bonus points to the new member if you defend me before twicks or some other hoodlum tarnishes my sterling image)

[Least Original User Name Ever]

(psst..gabriela , bonus points to the new member if you defend me before twicks or some other hoodlum tarnishes my sterling image)

[carnivorousplant]

before twicks or some other hoodlum tarnishes my sterling image)

Steel wool wouldn't...

[Mighty_Girl]

"Weird" is so ... judgmental.

"Eccentric," perhaps.Eccentric = weird + money. Are we all rich? ;)

Originally Posted by YaWannal
Oh, man, that hurt. :: pats YaWanna on the head ::

[baby voice] There, there. Look at the pretty accountant. Nice chubby cheeks. [/bv]


Better?

[Least Original User Name Ever]

'tis true.

I need a new coat o'varnish (or is it some form of laquer that'd be applicable?)

...probably just a polish would work for that particular buffing situation.

[gabriela]

Crap, they're on to me!
Crap!!

<<sbort>>

[gabriela]

<<sbort>>

I meant <<snort>>.

Sorry, I'm a little drunk.

[gabriela]

gabriela! I'm so happy you joined!

Do you testify in court? If so, have you found the so-called "CSI effect," where juries expect things to be the way they see on TV? And if yes, how do you counteract that?

If you don't testify in court, how do your colleagues who do handle the CSI effect?

Do I testify in court?? Are you kidding? I can do "What is pathology / What is forensic pathology / What is an autopsy" in my sleep. Frequently do, according to Gabriela's Trophy Husband.

The lawyer is going to see the CSI effect better than I am. You see, the lawyer sees the whole trial, including the conviction or lack thereof. By law, I can't listen to anyone's testimony before I testify, lest I be swayed. And I usually have too much to do to hang around afterwards. So all I hear is my piece.

But I hear about the CSI effect all the time from my friends. Also from families who ask me, on the day of the autopsy, "What did the tox show?" Hey, I'll know in six to twelve weeks. You want faster results? Ante up a million or so dollars in higher income taxes.

GTH likes to point out that the budget for any episode of CSI is bigger than the budget of my entire office for a year.

Not to mention, they fantasize their results.

[gabriela]

Hi, gabriela --great thread and I'm glad you decided to take the plunge.

You trained in Memphis or worked in Memphis? Just asking, 'cause my Dad is pathologist in Memphis--not forensic, though (although he does alot of consulting)....

Also, you didn't mention forensic nursing--a field that is growing quickly.


Glad to read your take on Scarpetta--I also stopped reading her books once I cottoned onto Kay always has to be in danger, no matter what.....<yawn>

Nobody asked this yet, so I will: what do you think of Quincy? (old TV show about a ME).

No goats here--just a :)

Aww, thanks, eleanorigby. Did we keep your face in a jar by the door?

I spent 4.5 years subordinate to the great J. T. Francisco. I cannot discuss O.C. Smith in public.

I may not have met your dad unless he worked for Baptist/the Med. Did he?

Forensic nursing - I have unfortunately very little to do with forensic nurses. This is because forensic nurses combine professional expertise, such as in sampling for DNA collection, with human touch and human qualities, such as sympathy and comfort. They help rape victims who report to the hospital for exams after the crime, and help the cops deal with molested or beaten kids. I deal chiefly with dead people. Very little overlap. Regret that.

No goats? (looks both ways) Cool. Relief noises.

[gabriela]

Nobody asked this yet, so I will: what do you think of Quincy? (old TV show about a ME).

Quincy had the best writers in the world.

People would ask Quincy: "When did he die?"
"Well, I can't say for certain, but it was between about midnight and 12:15."

Me: "Well, I can't say for certain, but it was between the time he was last seen and the time he was found dead."

That is because I rely on science, which has large holes in it and is uncertain, rather than scriptwriters.

I have often envied Quincy his scriptwriters.

On the other hand, that opening montage - when he fires up the Stryker to see if the rookie cops will faint? A classic.

[gabriela]

Hooray! Another pathologist on the boards!! :D

Do you know anyone at the San Francisco ME's office?

Hi Pazu!!

Forensic pathologist, surgical, cyto (I make the sign of the Devil at you if so to keep you away)?

No, I'm pure East Coast! Also, those of us who wished to sign out our OWN FRIGGIN' CAUSES AND MANNERS OF DEATH steered clear of San Francisco.

I dunno who's there now - who is there?

[eleanorigby]

Well, he is primarily a professor at UT Memphis, teaching either med students or residents--I'm not sure which. He's been a specialist in neo-natal and obstetrical pathology for many many years. Written a few books. I feel weird putting his name on the MB, so maybe I'll email it to you, if I can.


His initials are DRS. I feel like a CIA agent!
Some of my earliest memories involve fetuses in jars of formaldehyde(but not MY face)-that and him sacrificing baby mice or bunnies (I have no idea why). I used to visit him in his lab/office at U of Chicago when I was little (he went to Memphis in the late '70's).


And what about Quincy? He was cool, if a little dramatic (TV and all). And thanks for answering my questions, I felt left out!

[gabriela]

Hi gabriela - welcome!

Hope you don't mind answering a few of my questions.. Feel free not too, as I appear to have got a bit carried away...

Since you've become a forensic pathologist, has it changed any of your personal habits? Do you drive more slowly? Eat healthier?

Forensic anthropologist V Forensic pathologist - can you be both? What are the differences in how they work/who they work for? 'Cause I've been watching 'Bones' (h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s) and want one of those 3d imagey thingys. As I'm sure you would!

In movies/tv its an oft-repeated theme, how people are declared dead and go to the morgue only to not be dead and wake up. HUH? I find this really hard to believe - but does it happen in real life? How? Why?

Dealing with death everyday - what effect has this had on your beliefs/spirituality? Are you a parent? Does this affect your point of view?

Stories/Anecdotes/Personal experiences please - you must have some beauties!

Tell me about your first autopsy and if/how it was different than your expectations.

My brother has just become a Policeman (in Scotland) Any advice I can pass on to him?

(Already passed on the dead nose tip - thanks!)
Yingtong, iddle I po, too much.

Personal habits - I used to believe in immortality. I felt the conviction of what CS Lewis says somewhere, that if we all feel as if we should be immortal, then that reflects something in our spirit that means we should be. Then I began to feel about human beings, after many experiences of their deaths that seemed to teach me something on a wordless level, that we are designed to grow, mature, get old, and die.

I think about it with this analogy. Suppose someone throws a softball as hard as he can into the air. You are the softball. Birth, you've just been thrown. Rising, you are ten, twelve, eighteen. You feel yourself speeding into the air. It seems reasonable to you that you should achieve escape velocity and never return.

But all the time you are slowing. You realize it about thirty - you are ten years from the peak, but you begin to detect the slowing. It worries you. At forty, you know you are slowing to the perihelion. You feel the ball turn around and start to head back down around forty-five - or fifty, if by reason of strength, as the Bible says. From there on you aren't dead, but you know you are going to die, because the ball is picking up speed, and you can perceive the trajectory. You will crash to Earth some day.

Another way of putting it: Ever watched kittens being born? Ever adopted one and seen it turn into a cat? Have kittens of its own? Get old and move slower? Die? We are those kittens.

Yeah, I watch what I eat and I exercise and don't smoke, but I can feel the softball picking up speed.

[eleanorigby]

Sorry, didn't see your post re Quincy. I liked him, even if he DID manage to solve every death that came his way. And none of them were "he died in his sleep of an MI" kind of deaths. Funny, that.


I'm a critical care nurse-so I only take people to the morgue. I have seen a body unzip from it's body bag (so to speak) due to gas gangrene--pretty damned spooky when you're in the morgue by yourself.

[gabriela]

Hi gabriela - welcome!

Forensic anthropologist V Forensic pathologist - can you be both? What are the differences in how they work/who they work for? 'Cause I've been watching 'Bones' (h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s) and want one of those 3d imagey thingys. As I'm sure you would!

Sure, if you want to get a PhD and an MD. Each career path takes about 6 to 12 years after college. How many years you got, softball?

I have never met anyone who was both. It's like wanting to be a CEO of a satrtup entrepreneurial software company and also a seminary president. You could. But will you?

Those 3d imagey thingies are great for laughs, aren't they?

I love forensic anthro. If I hadn't done forensic path, that would've been my other love. We laugh at the series sometimes together.

In movies/tv its an oft-repeated theme, how people are declared dead and go to the morgue only to not be dead and wake up. HUH? I find this really hard to believe - but does it happen in real life? How? Why?

Once you're brain dead, you ain't waking up. EEGs have taken a lot of the mystery out of this. Still makes a great story - see Poe, EA for examples. Couple of years ago friends of mine thought they felt a pulse on a corpse trucked in from outside, did the only reasonable thing: started CPR. No pulse. Corpse was dead. Newspapers had a field day.

Dealing with death everyday - what effect has this had on your beliefs/spirituality? Are you a parent? Does this affect your point of view?

I am always aware of how short life is and how much I would like to have written on my tombstone that I accomplished. And how few of us are going to gain fame for great works. I am disappointed already in my obit. I wonder what life is for.

Stories/Anecdotes/Personal experiences please - you must have some beauties!

Some other thread.

Tell me about your first autopsy and if/how it was different than your expectations.

You know, I don't remember it? It was almost 3,000 ago. I met my first cadaver in medical school - but don't remember my first hospital autopsy as a resident. Sheesh.

My brother has just become a Policeman (in Scotland) Any advice I can pass on to him?(Already passed on the dead nose tip - thanks!)

Tell him not to respect us too much. Couple of cops watching the autopsy one day were making fun of a third cop to me, a guy I knew to be a really great investigator. They said, if he ever comes in here, ten minutes max, you'll see him turn pale, and run out of here. I thought about it for awhile, and I said, you know what would make me turn pale and run out of the room? A perp pointing a gun at me, is what would make me shit my pants.

Remember that what I do is sort of a lab test. And I am sort of a lab technician, albeit one with a lotta degrees on the wall. I do not get out there every day and face the shits and jerks who do the crimes. I am not part of the thin blue line. You have every reason to respect yourself for your own unequalled abilities when you're a visitor in my morgue.

[gabriela]

Sorry, didn't see your post re Quincy. I liked him, even if he DID manage to solve every death that came his way. And none of them were "he died in his sleep of an MI" kind of deaths. Funny, that.

Yeah, we all kind of like him, though we're sarcastic and cynical about having to live up to his image.

You know half the deaths I autopsy are natural, and maybe half of those are MI's in their sleep.

I'm a critical care nurse-so I only take people to the morgue. I have seen a body unzip from it's body bag (so to speak) due to gas gangrene--pretty damned spooky when you're in the morgue by yourself.

You're a critical care nurse? Thank you. God bless you and keep you.

Yeah, pretty spooky, isn't it?

[OtakuLoki]

Uh. Could I be number 3?


I'll support that, gabriela, as long as you support my claim to be number pi. ;)


I'm also going to bump my own question: What would you say was your most surprising finding? I'm still hoping it's not the broken ribbed "SIDS" baby, but I'm not holding my breath.

[gabriela]

Well, he is primarily a professor at UT Memphis, teaching either med students or residents--I'm not sure which. He's been a specialist in neo-natal and obstetrical pathology for many many years. Written a few books. I feel weird putting his name on the MB, so maybe I'll email it to you, if I can.


His initials are DRS. I feel like a CIA agent!
Some of my earliest memories involve fetuses in jars of formaldehyde(but not MY face)-that and him sacrificing baby mice or bunnies (I have no idea why). I used to visit him in his lab/office at U of Chicago when I was little (he went to Memphis in the late '70's).


And what about Quincy? He was cool, if a little dramatic (TV and all). And thanks for answering my questions, I felt left out!

I have to figure out how to put my e-mail into my personal profile.
It's in the NAME index - you won't have to be a major Quincy-ass detective to figure out who I am.

I'm not connecting to DRS.

You remember that museum in the basement of the ME's office with all the dead fetuses and cancers in formaldehyde? Did your dad start it?

[gabriela]

I'll support that, gabriela, as long as you support my claim to be number pi. ;)


I'm also going to bump my own question: What would you say was your most surprising finding? I'm still hoping it's not the broken ribbed "SIDS" baby, but I'm not holding my breath.

Um, I don't know. My memories aren't organized around "most surprising", but rather around "damn, did you see that".

Uh - if it's not mine, friend of mine's case - little old lady with something red in her vagina, autopsy extracts it, it's an upside down aspirin bottle with a red cap, inside it's full of rocks of crack?

[gabriela]

Yay! gabriela's staying! She's staying! :does happy dance, which looks remarkably like Snoopy dance, except with wild red hair:

I can't think of any cool questions right now, I'm just happy you're a member! You are, like, so cool! :cool:

{blushes with the intense embarrassment of one who was always a nerd in high school}

Oh my God. I'm one of the cool kids now? No wonder TubaDiva spoke to me!!!

[OtakuLoki]

Was that part of the cause of death, or just incidental? :eek:

[gabriela]

Was that part of the cause of death, or just incidental? :eek:

Incidental!

By the way, you know the proper procedure when you encounter a "mule" on the autopsy table?

(The Colombians sometimes sent peasants up to New York City after making them swallow 50-100 condoms packed with cocaine, to shit them out and hand them over to local drug lords for sale there. Once in awhile an overstretched condom burst - instant death from cocaine poisoning)

"LOOK! Everybody! I have found a Mule!! I am autopsying one! Count the cocaine bags with me! All together now! One... two... three.."

To absolve you of suspicion of taking any of them for yourself.

[gabriela]

Isn't there something strange that we are elated that someone who deals with decomposing corpses has joined The Dope? We sure weren't that happy the last time we got an accountant.

We're a weird bunch.

Yes, you - uh - we are.

Hey, that guy who trained with Bill Bass is excited about decomposing corpses. I prefer corpses, period.

[gabriela]

Oh, man, that hurt. :(


[snork]

[gabriela]

"Weird" is so ... judgmental.

"Eccentric," perhaps.

BTW, there's such a profession as "forensic accountant" -- ya think they'd have any interesting stories to tell?

Nah, I don't think so either.

Now wait a minnit - isn't that how they brought down Al Capone?

My old boss in (mphm mphm) used to say that having the FBI investigate a homicide was a horror, because they were untrained as homicide detectives and did a sloppy and badly informed job that a rookie would be ashamed of. But income taxes? Let them at him!

So the FBI could qualify as forensic accountants.

[gabriela]

(psst..gabriela , bonus points to the new member if you defend me before twicks or some other hoodum tarnishes my sterling image)

um, LeOrUsNaEv, I already said I adore your name, but if it comes down to defending you, I don't know exactly what you're doing with handsome college students.

[OtakuLoki]

"LOOK! Everybody! I have found a Mule!! I am autopsying one! Count the cocaine bags with me! All together now! One... two... three.."

That sounds like fun. Alas, I can see the prudence of such a procedure.

Is there any problem with drug or alcohol use in your office? I'd imagine that seeing all them 'stupidcides' would tend to motivate people towards a healthier lifestyle. (It's one thing to joke about "Eat Well, Stay Fit, Die Anyways," and another to go running for one's own starring role in an autopsy.) On the other hand, it does sound very stressful. If not from the constant reminders of mortality, then the constant reminders of the idiocy of people in general when dealing with court appearances.

[gabriela]

(psst..gabriela , bonus points to the new member if you defend me before twicks or some other hoodlum tarnishes my sterling image)

Are you calling Twicks a hoodlum?!

Silver scalpels at dawn!!

[gabriela]

(psst..gabriela , bonus points to the new member if you defend me before twicks or some other hoodlum tarnishes my sterling image)

Hey, if your new member is tarnished, I'm not the profession you need.

[gabriela]

'tis true.

I need a new coat o'varnish (or is it some form of laquer that'd be applicable?)

...probably just a polish would work for that particular buffing situation.

So now it's buff handsome college students in a situation?

I give up taunting you - I need to sit down and take a look inside your head.

[Pazu]

Hi Pazu!!

Forensic pathologist, surgical, cyto (I make the sign of the Devil at you if so to keep you away)?


AP/CP + Hemepath boards. Doin' the general private practice pathology thing.

What's wrong with cyto? Those of us who trained at UCSF know that cyto rulez! :D


No, I'm pure East Coast! Also, those of us who wished to sign out our OWN FRIGGIN' CAUSES AND MANNERS OF DEATH steered clear of San Francisco.

I dunno who's there now - who is there?

Actually, I grew up on the East Coast, but here I am.

The comment about signing out your causes and manners of death--that wouldn't have to do with a certain former head of the ME's office, would it? My friend Ellen Moffatt is working there now. We overlapped in residency. I figure, in a few years, she'll be running the place.

I may have missed this--where do you practice?

[gabriela]

That sounds like fun. Alas, I can see the prudence of such a procedure.

Is there any problem with drug or alcohol use in your office? I'd imagine that seeing all them 'stupidcides' would tend to motivate people towards a healthier lifestyle. (It's one thing to joke about "Eat Well, Stay Fit, Die Anyways," and another to go running for one's own starring role in an autopsy.) On the other hand, it does sound very stressful. If not from the constant reminders of mortality, then the constant reminders of the idiocy of people in general when dealing with court appearances.

We are fond of alcohol.

But, then, who isn't?

I saw a guy once who had a dotted line tattooed down him, with the motto, "Cut Here".

When my boss stopped laughing, she did.

It's not as stressful as you think. They're dead. They don't complain (though their families do). We have calluses. The job is interesting. We don't have to produce nonsense, or do things that interfere with the smooth running of the natural world, or ever have to lie. It's nice to have a real job where you never, ever, have to lie.

I bet many of you out there have harder job lives than I do. Don't waste sympathy.

[gabriela]

AP/CP + Hemepath boards. Doin' the general private practice pathology thing.

What's wrong with cyto? Those of us who trained at UCSF know that cyto rulez! :D


I'm AP/CP/FP/PP (peds path). Last time I took a Boards, the Boards warned me that if I ever took another, I'd have to give one up. And my husband said I'd have to give him up.


Actually, I grew up on the East Coast, but here I am.

The comment about signing out your causes and manners of death--that wouldn't have to do with a certain former head of the ME's office, would it? My friend Ellen Moffatt is working there now. We overlapped in residency. I figure, in a few years, she'll be running the place.

I may have missed this--where do you practice?

Yes it did have to do with a certain brand of B.S. (you guess who) and I hope Ellen Moffatt will revamp the whole place.

Not talkin' about where I work.

[gabriela]

Time to go to bed, people. I love you all. Talk to you in the morning, or maybe later than that - got to work in the AM.

Gabriela
feeling normal by contrast

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

Gee, I think we have more pathologists than we have Family Practitioners here at SDMB!

[Least Original User Name Ever]

um, LeOrUsNaEv, I already said I adore your name, but if it comes down to defending you, I don't know exactly what you're doing with handsome college students.
They're my mules. Let's hope there's a market for raspberry jam in Mexico.

...'round here, we call it "reverse-muleing".

[2nd Law]

Originally Posted by Least Original User Name Ever
'tis true.

I need a new coat o'varnish (or is it some form of laquer that'd be applicable?)

...probably just a polish would work for that particular buffing situation.




So now it's buff handsome college students in a situation?

I give up taunting you - I need to sit down and take a look inside your head.

...hands gabriela the stryker saw...

[twickster]

Y'all are doing a fine job of dealing with that puppy Least Original, I don't need to get involved here. :p

[twickster]

Damn, forgot the main thing I wanted to say -- gabriela, if you're somewhere in the MidAtlantic area, it's not too soon to start thinking about Gettysdope (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=361349), the big annual picnic -- July 15th this year.

[gabriela]

Gee, I think we have more pathologists than we have Family Practitioners here at SDMB!

That's because FPs are way too busy.

Qadgop, I am so glad you showed up to this thread. I've read your threads and responses many times with interest and deep respect. Verging on awe, sometimes. I am very much not up on current care for non fatal diseases; many times, people ask questions on the Dope to which I have no answer, and I find myself hoping you'll be the one to step up to the pitch and swing the bat.

Thanks for weighing in.

Gabriela

[gabriela]

They're my mules. Let's hope there's a market for raspberry jam in Mexico.

...'round here, we call it "reverse-muleing".

snork!

uh...
raspberry jam???

You have just outdone me. (marks points up in the air on an invisible scoreboard on LOUNE's dies)

And confused em - raspberry jam??

Dopers are smarter as a class than I am.
Not an unfamiliar sensation.

[gabriela]

...hands gabriela the stryker saw...

Major arse SNORK!!

I didn't even THINK of that!!

you score

[gabriela]

Damn, forgot the main thing I wanted to say -- gabriela, if you're somewhere in the MidAtlantic area, it's not too soon to start thinking about Gettysdope (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=361349), the big annual picnic -- July 15th this year.

Hunh.

[TubaDiva]

Oh. My. God.

Oh. My. God.

TUBADIVA spoke to me!

(runs away leaking tears of emotion)

Seriously now.

I usually get that reaction after I play and I haven't even warmed up yet!

TubaDiva
"I've suffered for my art. Now it's your turn."

[phall0106]

How many years you got, softball?

I just wanted to say that this would make a kick-ass sig line.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

That's because FPs are way too busy.

Qadgop, I am so glad you showed up to this thread. I've read your threads and responses many times with interest and deep respect. Verging on awe, sometimes. I am very much not up on current care for non fatal diseases; many times, people ask questions on the Dope to which I have no answer, and I find myself hoping you'll be the one to step up to the pitch and swing the bat.

Thanks, but I'm much less awe-inspiring in person. Just ask elfbabe! ;)

You've heard the old joke, I'm sure:

An FP's knowledge is wide but shallow, so they end up knowing almost nothing about nearly everything.

A Specialist's knowledge is deep but narrow, so they end up knowing almost everything about nearly nothing.

But a pathologist can get to know almost everything about nearly everything! But only after the patient's dead.

Good to have you here!

[gabriela]

Seriously now.

I usually get that reaction after I play and I haven't even warmed up yet!

TubaDiva
"I've suffered for my art. Now it's your turn."

(I am being addressed familiarly by the Mod of my Forum, and an Administrator.

Must not panic - must not panic - will not blush...
Or fart - (NOOO!)

Think of small talk... quick...)

Uh, did you ever hear about the case of the victim who was killed with a three-pronged music stand? I'm not joking. Saw it presented at one of those conventions I described. It was inserted under the neck.

A vital lacuna in the presentation was whether it was in response to the music.

I've never heard of brass instruments being used in death and destruction...

(looks around - hears silence - backs away slowly, waving frantically, with fixed smile in place on lips. Farts and blushes as she dashes from room)

[gabriela]

Thanks, but I'm much less awe-inspiring in person. Just ask elfbabe! ;)

You've heard the old joke, I'm sure:

An FP's knowledge is wide but shallow, so they end up knowing almost nothing about nearly everything.

A Specialist's knowledge is deep but narrow, so they end up knowing almost everything about nearly nothing.

But a pathologist can get to know almost everything about nearly everything! But only after the patient's dead.

Good to have you here!

I am by definition always too late.

(Strikes pose, with cape blowing) But not too late for... Justice!!!

And then somebody is convicted, and you end up taking care of 'em.

Saw one of your reasoned replies in some General Question this morning - had my usual mental response, which is, I couldn't have said that; thank God QtM did.

By the way, ever since I started seeing your name, it has bothered me that I am unable to remember the chapter quote or the book of the Lensman series in which E.E. "Doc" Smith addressed you. Your name adorns the end of a quote which WILL NOT come to mind.

Cite?

Gratefully,
Gabriela

P.S. How do you find the family doc's car in the parking lot? Look for the 20 year old Rambler missing one hubcap with payments still due. How do you find the orthopedic surgeon's? Look for the Mercedes with the coloring books on the dashboard...

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

By the way, ever since I started seeing your name, it has bothered me that I am unable to remember the chapter quote or the book of the Lensman series in which E.E. "Doc" Smith addressed you. Your name adorns the end of a quote which WILL NOT come to mind.
Who is this "Doc" Smith of whom you speak? My creator was the famous author Sybly Whyte! ;)
Qadgop the Mercotan slithered flatly around the after-bulge of the
tranship. One claw dug into the meters-thick armor of pure neutronium,
then another. Its terrible xmex-like snout locked on. Its zymolosely
polydactyl tongue crunched out, crashed down, rasped across. Slurp!
Slurp! At each abrasive stroke the groove in the tranship's plating
deepened and Qadgop leered more fiercely. Fools! Did they think that
the airlessness of absolute space, the heatlessness of absolute zero,
the yieldlessness of absolute neutronium could stop QADGOP THE
MERCOTAN? And the stowaway, that human wench Cynthia, cowering in
helpless terror just beyond this thin and fragile wall....
Sybly Whyte, "Qadgop the Mercotan"


BTW, I drive a Lexus. It's 11 years old and has 303,000 miles. But it's a Lexus, dammit! :)

[gabriela]

Who is this "Doc" Smith of whom you speak? My creator was the famous author Sybly Whyte! ;)

Sybly Whyte, "Qadgop the Mercotan"


BTW, I drive a Lexus. It's 11 years old and has 303,000 miles. But it's a Lexus, dammit! :)

I stand corrected.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for that quote.

A 303,000 mile Lexus??
I drive an Echo.
I work for the government, too.

[Osip]

If you studied with Bill Bass, I bet the memories that flooded you were olfactory.



You mean I have to start swelling other people's heads?



Ooh! Ooh! Tell us how to stab people with style. (I only know about how they've been stabbed. No expertise on how to do it!) I recall one autopsy my colleague did which I read over for her - twenty-six stab wounds and only one of them fatal. We said we thought the guy oughta have been sent to stab wound training first. And here you add style.


Yes Bass'es Athropology Research Field was an olfactory sensation. The floaters were not that bad really, with all the bloating they never seemed real, more like a twisted stay puff marshmellow man. Now, the bodies that cooked in the truck in 90 to 100 degree tennessee heat.. ick that could knock you back the first few times.

No worries about swelling my head.. is a long running joke.

How to stab people? well I have (and do) teach classical fencing. Finally after all these years I have a local high school interested in maybe letting me teach an after hours class as an alternate PE credit.

To finish the Gaps about Osip.. I also burn things (sandcasting bronze, brass, silver and Aluminum. Durring the day I am a locksmith.

I get to break into things, stab people,and burn things and not worry about potential jail time :)

Glad your here on the SDMB.

Osip

[Ellen Cherry]

Waving to gabriela -- hi! I'm your first fan. I deeply enjoyed the falling from the balcony thread, which I offered up for Threadspotting. So I've been on to ya since you first stopped by! :)

[gabriela]

Waving to gabriela -- hi! I'm your first fan. I deeply enjoyed the falling from the balcony thread, which I offered up for Threadspotting. So I've been on to ya since you first stopped by! :)

Hey!
I've got a fan!
I'm one-third up on Shirley of great fame!

[gabriela]

Yes Bass'es Athropology Research Field was an olfactory sensation. The floaters were not that bad really, with all the bloating they never seemed real, more like a twisted stay puff marshmellow man. Now, the bodies that cooked in the truck in 90 to 100 degree tennessee heat.. ick that could knock you back the first few times.

No worries about swelling my head.. is a long running joke.

How to stab people? well I have (and do) teach classical fencing. Finally after all these years I have a local high school interested in maybe letting me teach an after hours class as an alternate PE credit.

To finish the Gaps about Osip.. I also burn things (sandcasting bronze, brass, silver and Aluminum. Durring the day I am a locksmith.

I get to break into things, stab people,and burn things and not worry about potential jail time :)

Glad your here on the SDMB.

Osip

I am sorry I have not had time to respond to my own thread. I worried this might happen when I signed up from home. Oh well. Last bump just to answer Osip, and give it up.

The smell of the Bass bodies isn't the whole story. The entomology is.
Hey, we were once at an AAFS meeting (those conventions I mentioned) and for some reason the organizers had thought fit to book it at a Disney resort. The poster sessions were just a hallway off the registration desks, and eight-year-old kids were always running in and looking around with big eyes at the pictures of death and mayhem. Their parents would drag them out aghast. The kids weren't aghast.

Well, there was this lovely little thing like a cross between a pool and a hot tub, suitable for soaking ten or fifteen adults, only you couldn't drink your beer in it by Disney rules until all the children had gone to bed. So we called in the forensic entomologists to chat with the Bill Bass people about "maggot mass". In ten minutes we had the pool to ourselves.

Of course, the children weren't leaving voluntarily...

[OtakuLoki]

Sepaking of that, gabriela, do you have the concept of "dinner conversation." My parents both have medical experience - but still my mother insisted on avoiding "gross" topics for dinnertime.

What a crock. (One of the pleasures of college life: Watching to see who comes over to listen or runs in horror when you and your classmates talk pathology or microbiology...)

[OpalCat]

Welcome gabriela! I popped into this thread because it looked interesting... and now I feel ever-so-slightly sick, but I can't look away! I keep getting this creepy feeling in my hands, though, after reading the description of "degloving"....bleah!!!

I am way too wussy and squeamish to do what you do, but it fascinates me.

[Ellen Cherry]

That reminds me: I want a detailed description of what gabriela and rigs were talking about regarding a body unzipping itself.

Detailed.

[roger thornhill]

When you've had a body on the slab, has it ever become manifest that the individual had been lying about their gender?

[gabriela]

When you've had a body on the slab, has it ever become manifest that the individual had been lying about their gender?

Sure.

But "lying about" comes in stages. "Known to some intimates but not to all people in his/her circle". "Known to everybody in his/her circle but not to police." "Known to everybody in the fricking world except to us. SURPRISE!"

People who successfully hide their gender for an entire lifetime must be rare; I've never seen one. You'd have to never get a medical exam, never be in the military, never be shot. Rare in today's world. And what for?

It's not like women can't be doctors any more...

[Princhester]

{blushes with the intense embarrassment of one who was always a nerd in high school}

Oh my God. I'm one of the cool kids now? No wonder TubaDiva spoke to me!!!

The whole thing about these boards is that it is where the nerds are the "cool" crowd.

Well, it is for me.

[roger thornhill]

Have you ever performed a Number Six-style operation? Common in Korea.

[gabriela]

Have you ever performed a Number Six-style operation? Common in Korea.

Baby, I don't even know what a Number Six is.

[gabriela]

The whole thing about these boards is that it is where the nerds are the "cool" crowd.

Well, it is for me.

About time we take over the world.


Only pity is, our enemies won't know enough to say: "I for one welcome..."

[twickster]

About time we take over the world.


Only pity is, our enemies won't know enough to say: "I for one welcome..."

Damn, you definitely are one of us.... one of us .... one of us... :D

[roger thornhill]

Do you come from Texas? You have a Texan way of addressing people.

[slaphead]

So who are the real legends of the forensic pathology world, the ones who all freshly qualified newbies want to emulate and surpass?

I remember reading the autobiography of Sir Sydney Smith (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0880293063/102-7962331-6505744?v=glance&n=283155) when I was a kiddie, and finding it fascinating*. Is he one of the Great Pioneers of Poking Around In Dead People or just an also-ran?
*My English teacher was less impressed with me bringing it in for reading hour at age 9 or so, but there ya go. Not my fault he was a dullard who couldn't appreciate a good book.

[roger thornhill]

Hey, Gabriela, sweetie, when you get back from your slab, you will come and answer our questions, won't you? Can hardly concentrate with the not knowing. Don't be a tease.

[SkipMagic]

roger thornhill, if you have suspicions about someone trolling or being a sock, bring it to the attention of the mods. Do not make it a personal crusade to "out" anyone. Please do not do this again.

[roger thornhill]

I got a bit suspicious, I admit, when she called me "baby". No forensic pathologist has ever called me that before. Glad you're on the case now, anyhow.

[Mangetout]

I have a question.

On TV, which I fully understand is sometimes different from real life, forensic pathologists are often portrayed as being somewhat blasé about handling their subjects' body fluids; for example, they might be drinking a cup of tea while they are soaked in gore to the elbows, of they might be eating a sandwich while observing a skull being cut open with a rotary blade.

Does this sort of attitude exist at all in real life? Actually, please just tell me it doesn't.

[roger thornhill]

You mention that your husband isn't a doctor, Gabriela. Does he enjoy your pathological stories?

[SkipMagic]

You mention that your husband isn't a doctor, Gabriela. Does he enjoy your pathological stories?
Did you learn nothing when you were told to quit with your baiting? All you've done is earn yourself another warning. You're done in this thread, roger, so don't return to it again. Should you want to voice your objections, take it to e-mail or the Pit.

[roger thornhill]

Warning noted, Skippy. I mistakenly thought someone who cuts up dead bodies for a living could take a bit of gentle ribbing. Nothing to take to the Pit, so I'll sign out of this thread as requested now.

[gabriela]

I am truly sorry. I can only post from home, and usually only in the mornings, so I completely missed these last several posts. I thought this thread had gone to the Great Home in the Sky.

Dear Skipmagic, I wouldn't even have noticed that there was ribbing going on. I'd have had no problem answering Roger Thornhill in the affirmative although I cannot provide absolute details.

I am a board certified forensic pathologist employed fulltime in forensic practice by a state agency; however, I am cautious about allowing personal identifying information out, since I have a sense of humor and government agencies, notoriously, do not. I have been quite careful not to say anything against the rules or regulations of my job, but you never know when somebody will take offense against the demonstration of a sense of humor in a person who deals with the dead. I would not like to find my job in danger because of a post to the Dope. Hence, I need to remain reasonably anonymous.

Skipmagic, may I offer this question to Roger Thornhill? Roger, is there some way I can prove to you through extensive knowledge of autopsy or forensics that I am what I have said I am, without personal identifying information? Would the recent post called "There have been no squcky autopsy threads lately" be considered valid, or is it too light hearted?

I am definitely not a sock puppet.

And, despite an MD, four board certifications, the advanced age of 48, and nearly 3000 autopsies, I do still sometimes call people "baby".

And I still don't know what a "Number Six" is!

[gabriela]

You mention that your husband isn't a doctor, Gabriela. Does he enjoy your pathological stories?

Actually my husband and I were brought together by one of my most embarrassing stories... and the fact that a couple listening at the next table asked for a bottle of Brut...

After sixteen years with me my husband is squcked out by virtually no discussion topic. However, that doesn't extend to a sight of the real thing. He avoids visuals as carefully as he can!

And the young medical students are beginning to be uncertain whether he's a doctor. He throws around terms like "pulmonary embolism" so competently. He knows the real abbreviations like PE, and the in-joke abbreviations like STD.

I hope I have not brought down the wrath of SkipMagic by answering this innocuous sounding question. But I assume RogerThornhill has left the thread not to return.

[gabriela]

I have a question.

On TV, which I fully understand is sometimes different from real life, forensic pathologists are often portrayed as being somewhat blasé about handling their subjects' body fluids; for example, they might be drinking a cup of tea while they are soaked in gore to the elbows, of they might be eating a sandwich while observing a skull being cut open with a rotary blade.

Does this sort of attitude exist at all in real life? Actually, please just tell me it doesn't.

I'm truly sorry to a great poster whose posts I read with avidity, but it does exist. Really, though, it would be truer to say that for decades it DID exist.

There is a great divide between the grand old pathologists (almost all of whom were men) and the present day pathologists (half of whom are women). Not that it's sex relevant.

The difference is AIDS. Once the great plague was recognized about 1982-3, all the casual machismo and joking stuff went away. Universal precautions became the rule and this kind of behavior vanished from the autopsy suite.

Everyone knows stories about the pathologist in the 1960's who would eat a ham sandwich over the body. But no one eats in the autopsy suite today. We suit up like surgeons to do our work. I am one of the last people who prefers not to wear cutproof gloves (you have to wear three layers to wear cutproofs: rubber gloves, the resistant cloth cutproof gloves, rubber gloves over that) since I am more dexterous and agile without them, and I tend to cut myself only if I am momentarily clumsy. (They aren't really cutproof anyhow – more cut resistant.) But our medical students not only have to suit up like surgeons, but wear the three layers of gloves even if they are only standing over the body looking down and in.

That said, I have become very casual about body fluids. One always gets some blood on one somewhere (the wrist between the glove and the sleeve is very common). I have decided that blood (theirs) on intact skin (mine) isn't going to kill me. Hasn't yet. I have also dealt with ovarian cyst fluid, bile, urine, gastric contents, intestinal contents, decomposition fluid... one does get blase over time. I can basically clean up anything so long as I have rubber gloves to wear.

[gabriela]

Oh, yes, and one of the perks of the job is the adoration of strange dogs who sniff one's wrists.

[gabriela]

So who are the real legends of the forensic pathology world, the ones who all freshly qualified newbies want to emulate and surpass?

I remember reading the autobiography of Sir Sydney Smith (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0880293063/102-7962331-6505744?v=glance&n=283155) when I was a kiddie, and finding it fascinating*. Is he one of the Great Pioneers of Poking Around In Dead People or just an also-ran?
*My English teacher was less impressed with me bringing it in for reading hour at age 9 or so, but there ya go. Not my fault he was a dullard who couldn't appreciate a good book.

The admiration is a little bit different from one side of the puddle to the other. Bernard Knight and Sidney Smith were among the greats in the UK. Milton Helpern, the older Dr. DiMaio, these spring to mind on this side.

The middle generation (if I can say so - the great pathologists who followed the founders of the field) is now senior. Many of them are deeply admired but others, well, others, well, this is a public forum not for airing of private laundry. Shall we just say that when Cyril Wecht got booted, many of us heaved a thankful sigh.

[gabriela]

*My English teacher was less impressed with me bringing it in for reading hour at age 9 or so, but there ya go. Not my fault he was a dullard who couldn't appreciate a good book.

The other great divide is between people who would prefer not to think about death unless it is all gussied up as Death, in Literature; and those of us who really get into the squcky details.

In fact many of those people would prefer not to think about us at all, because then they have to imagine our sex lives, and it gets... well...

You know where I stand on the squcky details, and now I know where you stand, too. Since you were nine, eh?

[slaphead]

Since you were nine, eh?
Since I was five, and got to watch while our neighbour's pigs were disassembled by a couple of slaughtermen.
Mister, Mister,what's THAT bit do? :D