While we’re doing this, the technician removes the brain. He makes an ear-to-ear incision over the crown of the head. The scalp is peeled forward over the eyes. He uses a bone saw, the same kind they use to take off plaster casts, to cut the skull and remove it like a skullcap. The brain is so loosely attached that it takes just a few more cuts and the brain tumbles out. The cap of the skull is replaced. The mortician can hide the scalp incision.

I say hospital autopsies are boring only because the death is always from natural causes and we find very common abnormalities or completely normal findings. When someone thinks of autopsies they usually think of the Medical Examiner. Autopsies there are quick and to the point. They examine every organ, but usually only in a cursory manner. This is where you see the homicides, suicides, accidents, etc. It’s quite different from what I do now, but I have some experience with it and I may choose it as my subspecialty. Last night at a party, this woman found out I am a doctor and she asked me about autopsies. She said she’d recently lost a second-trimester pregnancy and they’d autopsied the fetus. She said the doctor who got the autopsy consent from her described everything in such a cold, clinical manner, and I guess that’s what I’ve done here. Sorry. Maybe in another installment I will tell you how I feel about this job.