Pathologist Career
Pathologist Career
The Real Poop
Pathologists are the gurus of gunk—well, body gunk, that is.
The pathologist's job is to look for signs of disease or illness in samples of tissue, organs, blood, and other bodily contents—you know, all that little squishy stuff inside us that adds up to the big squishy thing that each of us is. If that description makes you throw up a little bit in your mouth, run. Run screaming from this job.
There are a bazillion different types of pathologists with a bazillion different specializations, but the major branches are anatomical, clinical, and experimental pathology. One big plus to being any kind of pathologist is the pay. The average salary is around $258,000 per year, which beats flippin' burgers any day (source).
Also, since the job is lab-based, your hours usually aren't quite as insane as those of other doctors. The specifics will obviously differ depending on where you land, but you'll probably be in the forty- to fifty-hours-per-week range, which in the medical world is downright relaxed.
No matter their specialty, most pathologists work in hospitals, clinics, or private practices, where they enjoy fun activities like performing autopsies and peeping through microscopes at possibly diseased tissue samples that are squished into slides. Yum. Some pathologists also work in research labs, where they do similar things, but their goal is to help find cures for diseases or to see if the newest hairspray gives mice cancer.
If you have a super-strong stomach, you might become a forensic pathologist. There's been a big upswing in interest in this arena in recent years because of all those TV shows where attractive people in lab coats solve mysteries with their mad science skills.
Trust us, it's not quite as cool as it looks. Looking at a murdered corpse face to face is, to put it mildly, pretty intense. Yeah, forensic pathologists do indeed help solve crimes (which has to be cool), but all of those autopsies have to wear you down eventually.
Unlike other types of doctors, you won't have to deal directly with patients quite as much in this career. You're doing a lot of the research, but delivering the bad news usually falls squarely in somebody else's lap so you'll dodge a whole bunch of stress there. Of course, if you're more of a social butterfly, being cooped up in a lab all day might be torture.
Don't think that your cozy little lab is going to keep your life stress-free, though. You might not have delirious patients in your face all day, but you do have a ton of different doctors all expecting you to analyze a ton of different things all at the same time. To hack it as a pathologist, you've got to be skilled at multitasking, and you must be well-organized. Mix up one slide for another, and the consequences could be dire—like, life or death dire. So yeah, we'd call that stressful.
And if you think the stresses of the job are tough, let's not forget all the stressful years of school you have to go through to earn your place behind the microscope.
After four years of undergrad, your first big hurdle will be getting into med school—hard. Then you'll have to hack it through four years of med school—harder. Then you'll have to battle your way through a four- to five-year residency where you'll get hands-on experience in a lab—hardest. And then finally, you'll have to get certified by your state and the Jedi Council-like American Board of Pathology—hardest-er.
Altogether, you're looking at around twelve to thirteen years of training before they even let you loose in a lab of your own. At least you probably won't have to stress too much about finding a gig as a pathologist—the job outlook is great (source). So...there's that.
If none of this scares you, go for it. Somewhere out there, there's an endless supply of bodily gunk calling your name. Well, hopefully the gunk isn't literally calling your name—that would be a little scary.