Is there any way to lessen the amount of schooling you have to complete to get a job in forensic pathology??

Question

All the sites I have found say it takes 12 years total of different types of classes to get a job in forensic pathology. Forensic pathologists are physicians who have specialized medical and forensic science training to determine the cause of sudden or unnatural deaths. They are involved in crime investigations and testify as expert witnesses in court. I was wondering if there is any way I can shorten this period by ALOT because I really don't want to have to take that much schooling. Also...if I HAVE to have that much schooling, are there other jobs I can take along the way as I earn degrees. PLEASE RESPOND!!! thanks.

Answer 1

Twelve years is actually underestimating what you will need. Four + years to get a bachelor's degree. Four years of medical school, five years of general pathology residency, one year of forensic pathology fellowship.

There really is no other way to get there, at least in the US. That is one reason there are only about 400 of us that do that full time. You would think our salaries would be higher.

During residency and fellowship, and the first years of your career, you will want to do research and publish, as that helps when you are qualifying as an expert witness.

On a daily basis, we don't go to crime scenes, regardless of what you have seen on television. Do not base your career decisions on fiction. What keeps most people out of the industry is decomposed bodies, which are repugnant even to the strongest stomach, and the bit of menthol ointment they put under their noses does nothing. That is not always a daily thing, but only about every other day, except in summer, when you can have maybe two a day.

If you do not go through the standard steps to get the proper schooling, and try to enter the field via shortcut, you will find your career to be similarly short, as we are a small group and know each other and know how qualified each of us is.

In summary, you have to do it this way, or investigate other related fields, such as crime scene investigations, or forensic toxicology, forensic anthropology, botony, geology or DNA analyst, although many of those experts are Ph.D. level experts, which is not much shorter than what I did.