I’m an Anatomical Pathology Technician (APT) in training. APTs are in charge of the day to day running of mortuaries and can be working in the NHS or council mortuaries. We take care of the deceased, release them to funeral directors, set up viewings for family members, and also carry out post mortems.
I wanted to be an APT straight out of uni, but the trainee positions are pretty hard to come by and very competitive. Tom hooked me up with some experience at the Royal mortuary in Liverpool and that helped me to get interviews, but I was always just beaten by someone with more real-world experience. Having done work experience in the HARC over the summer prosecting, I applied for a job as a prosector at St George’s in London on a whim and managed to get it, so I did that for a year after leaving uni. I really enjoyed it but I needed a bit more variation and still really wanted to be an APT. Then a trainee job came up at the mortuary of St George’s hospital, which we shared a corridor with, so I managed to get my foot in the door and met the team there before my interview. I made a good impression and got the job!
My anatomy degree has definitely helped, partly because my work as a prosector was very useful experience (and there’s no way I could’ve done that without studying anatomy!) and also because when I started at this job, I was able to learn to eviscerate (remove the organs at post mortem) very quickly since I already had the anatomical knowledge. It also provided me with my first encounters with the deceased, without which I would never have been able to get anywhere.
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