Anatomical pathology technician

You'd help doctors conduct post-mortems to discover how and why a person died suddenly.

You'd provide a sensitive and tactful service to bereaved families, giving them answers about the death of their loved one.

During a post-mortem, you would work carefully alongside a specialist doctor - the pathologist - as they dissect the body.

You would:

• Pass them instruments, such as scalpels
• Take tissue samples
• Weigh organs as they are removed from a body
• Take samples for lab analysis
• Accurately record the findings of the examination

After a post-mortem, you'd help to reconstruct and clean the body for storage or to for collection by an undertaker.

You'd run the mortuary efficiently to meet legal and medical requirements, including health and safety rules.

You would:

• Make sure instruments are clean, sterile and ready for use
• Receive bodies into the mortuary at short notice
• Place the deceased person into cold storage units
• Keep accurate records as required by law
• Keep track of the property and samples of the deceased person

You would work closely with doctors, the police, the procurator fiscal and the relatives of those who have died.

With experience, you could assist forensic pathologists to examine murder victims.

Most jobs are within the National Health Service though you could also work with local authority's mortuary facilities. You can check the NHS salary for this role in the Agenda for Change pay rate guide on the NHS Careers website.