Pathologist Job Description
Pathology is the study of disease and where it comes from, which makes a pathologist a person who studies diseases in plants, humans, or animals. They study how a disease originated, how the patient has been infected with the disease, and they also study the changes in the disease. A lot of times, they will work in a morgue to determine what caused the person’s death. Other times, they work in labs and get sent samples from doctors so they can determine what kind of disease the patient has. They do not cure the patients themselves, but they do figure out the underlying cause of the ailment. Once the doctor has the results from the pathologist, then he can decide a treatment plan for the patient.
Work Environment
Due to there being different areas in pathology, these scientists have a lot of potentials places of work. They often work in hospitals, veterinary facilities, medical examiners offices, universities, or medical schools, and they average about 40 hours a week depending on where they work.
Branches of Pathology
There are essentially two branches of pathology, which are anatomic pathology and clinical pathology. The first branch involves taking samples of tissue from patients who are either dead or alive, and determining the disease from the examination of the tissues. The latter branch has the pathologists taking samples of body fluids such as blood or urine to perform toxicology exams.
Other Duties
In addition to examining samples from the body, they also perform autopsies on dead bodies. This is so that they can see how far a disease got to the person and what exactly killed the person. They also do this in order to see how the treatment plan was working for the patient. Post-surgery tissue examining is also part of a pathologist’s job description. Examining tissue before, during, and after surgery allows for the medical staff to be able to spot any potential problems that the patient may have.
Pathologists work with other members of the medical staff in order to determine what is causing the patient to be ill. Although they do not directly cure the patient, without their help, doctors would have no idea what treatment to offer the patient.