Sometimes when I meet new people and tell them what I do, their first question is something like “So you do autopsies on dead people?”  My thirty second elevator pitch must need some work because their eyes usually glare over and they politely excuse themselves when I explain that, unless you work for a medical school or Coroner’s/ME Office, autopsies are a small part of the job.  It’s a shame that most of the public’s only experience with pathology is the unrealistic dramatizations observed in movies or television.  There are a large number of health care workers that also don’t understand that pathologists do so much more.

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