Doing Death Work: A Mixed Method Examination of Imprinted Events and Behavioral Responses of Medical Examiner's Office Employees

Abstract

This study provides a qualitative and quantitative data analysis from interviews of current and former employees of medical examiner offices. These employees' current and former positions required that they arrive at scenes of natural, accidental, suicidal, undetermined, and homicidal deaths, document and retrieve the decedent(s), and assist in eviscerating the remains to aid forensic pathologists during autopsy procedures. The authors interviewed 14 current or past employees of different medical examiner offices to understand what they liked and disliked about this curious profession and aimed to understand professional struggles. Additionally, study participants answered questions about imprinted events, how they and colleagues responded to their job, behavioral adaptations to the profession, and views about treatment or programming to assist persons working in a field exposed to death daily. The study identified a range of imprinted events and reasons why certain circumstances are meaningful and memorable. These professionals personalize their experiences and utilize bluntness in their conversations about life, risk, and parenting with family and friends. These death work professionals become risk aversive, change their friendship dynamics, learn not to take life for granted, and parent and see children differently. Some participants indicated that they experience dreams and relationship difficulties. Although study participants expressed openness to treatment and programming, this support was typically in the context of assistance for others who needed help to cope, as opposed to a treatment option they would consider.Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily. -Francois De La Rochefoucauld For all living creatures, death is inevitable. It is an apodictic truth that eventually, we all will die. Yet, despite the inescapable truth, the topic of death is discussed sparingly. Death is hard. Death is uncomfortable. A family member, friend, or acquaintance of a decedent must manage an end when it occurs, and the effects of a death of a loved one can be complex and protracted (