Having worked in geriatrics, end of life care and intensive care medicine where mortality rates are high, I have grown familiar with the mortuary through my many visits. I am familiar with the staff members who work there, I know where the gloves are kept and I now remember to brace myself to the freezing cold temperatures before taking a step in. But it all started with that one awkward first visit.
I had not prepared myself for the protocol of death in this country. When my granddad died back home, we brought his body to the mosque straight away and we buried him that same night. Naively I thought that that was what happens here. But between arranging funerals, completing death certificates and arranging cremations, there are unavoidable delays. My first visit was made after a confusing navigation through the many documents that I needed to complete to officialise my patient's demise. The mortuary is located at the end of a long, cold corridor in the basement floor of the main hospital.
Upon entering through the locked iron doors, one would instantly be hit with the icy, sterile breeze. "How can you just wear scrubs in this room? It is freezing!" I would ask the technicians.
"I have gotten used to it, but believe me, I still sometimes find it unbearable!"
I would tell him the name of the patient to be examined and he would scan the names on the freezer doors. Each freezer has four levels of patients, so sometimes they would need to get the special ladder out to help them access specific bodies. I remember thinking on my first visit, how impersonal this felt. How if I were to die, I wouldn't want to be sharing a freezer with three other people potentially lying above me. He wheeled my patient's body out. I remember him looking serene, just like he was in deep slumber. With gloves on, I examined his chest to check if he had any pacemaker. Confirming that he didn't, the body is wheeled back in and after signing his form, I quickly exited the mortuary - faster than when I entered.
After a while, I developed a coping mechanism to combat the awkward and uncomfortable nature of these visits. Gradually, it (rightly or wrongly) just became a routine part of my job. Emotions are left at the door and I tell myself that my patients' soles are not in this room. They are floating around somewhere unseen and what is left are just shells of what they were. Somehow, that consoles me a bit. And probably those whose jobs involve taking care of these bodies everyday have similar coping mechanisms too.
But just when I thought I had gotten used to my dealings with the mortuary, I was called to witness a post-mortem. These are held by pathologists when the cause of death is uncertain. Their expertise lie in carefully dissecting the body and examining each organ for macroscopic and microscopic clues. Needless to say, it was difficult to watch. It looked nothing like the ones I watch on crime dramas. It was not as neat and it was more raw.
After that, I felt like I was back at the beginning - awkward, uncomfortable and a little bit queasy. But thankfully, I would not have to bear witness to many of these proceedings in my career, unless of course my calling suddenly switches from paediatrics to pathology. In the end, these experiences make up some of the necessary evils of the medical profession. One can be hindered or paralysed by it, or one can just persevere on in getting the job done. Here is me trying to do the latter!
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