What attitude have pathologists and similar specialists developed to the philosophical questions of life and death?

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6 Answers

  1. Specialists who work in the context of “life/death” are characterized by such professional deformity as some cynicism. But if changes take the form of destructions rather than deformations (for example, complete indifference and emotional detachment), this usually affects both the quality of professional activity and all areas of a specialist's life in a negative way. Based on the rich experience of interacting with rescuers, I can say that the most preserved are those who managed to preserve their humanity and caring inside, but nevertheless do not transfer someone else's grief to themselves.�

    Interacting with dead bodies is often less traumatic for a specialist than dying on their hands or having to communicate with relatives of the deceased. Because even if you are convinced of the unity of life and death, the naturalness of these processes, there is no way to convey this to someone who is dying, or who is experiencing the loss of a loved one.

  2. A close friend's husband is a medical examiner. She, a reserved person and not very emotional, admitted that she is very difficult with her husband sometimes. The attitude to life, death, violent death, and illness is the most detached. In terms of work, there is little that can shock him or evoke empathy, although there are different cases. (For example, the death of a nine-month-old baby, whose parents claim that he just fell off the couch, and the examination establishes something completely different). If you think about it, this is a healthy attitude to work, a professional approach: when a forensic scientist works with organic material, his task is to make the right conclusion, and not to cry over a ruined soul. On the other hand, professional deformation affects (who has more, who has less, probably) the relationship with loved ones, their family and children: dryness, a certain callousness, emotionlessness. I wrote about a particular family. But I think this is a common type of such a specialist.�

    Another friend, a medic by training, recalls with a shudder her practice with pathologists: she says they did not pay attention to the smell for a long time, they ate lunch at the workplace calmly. With particular horror, she remembers drowned people and “snowdrops”.

  3. From the point of view of paleontology, humanity appeared not so long ago, about 2.5 million years (the first Homo) and only 170 thousand years there is a modern physical type of man – Homo sapiens. Compared to the total history of life on earth (3.5 billion years), this is very small. There is not a single form of living organisms that has existed from the beginning of its origin without extinction or evolutionary transformation. Even dinosaurs lived on the planet for a longer time than humans. It is possible that due to reasons independent of humans, there will be another environmental change (a new ice age or something) that we will not be able to survive. If we die out, those who are lucky will become fossilized-fossilized. If there's anything intelligent on the planet, they'll dig us up and describe us as a new species. Maybe not.

  4. I don't know if I can be classified as a “specialist”, but I'll answer that.
    I work as a train driver on the railway. The number of people who have ceased to exist under my wheels has already passed through the middle of the segment between 0 and 10. Even before my first case, I repeatedly saw the consequences of what remains of a person after contact with a train, when they fell under the locomotives of colleagues. Just a week ago, I arrive at the bus stop and from a distance I see a purple hill that stands out, this pedestrian was shredded by an express train to the state of “load with a shovel”, the trackmen have already cleaned up, they were waiting for a corpse cart. You see such nonsense almost every month.
    Until the first time, I always thought about how I would behave. Experienced colleagues said that until you get into this situation , you will not know what you are capable of. That the swaggering guys “I don't care” when hitting and arriving at the place fell right next to the corpse themselves, and someone fertilized the grass in the slope with a recently eaten lunch.
    And now, that moment has arrived. I am an assistant machinist with nine months ' experience. Dark December morning. We are traveling on a single locomotive. A woman walks along the path. I immediately suspected something was amiss, since she was walking, although not in size, but in front of her was a pedestrian bridge across our path. Logically, she was walking towards him. We started giving signals. She didn't react at all. I say to the driver: “Can we slow down?” He: “But she's not on the right path.. Why slow down?” I shrugged my shoulders, why should I, a brat, tell a train driver with 35 years of experience what to do. And so, we are about ten meters away from the bridge, and the woman, having sharply turned onto it, is thrown aside by the skotosbrasyvatel of our locomotive at a speed of about 60 km/h. Emergency braking. I calmly, but a little quickly, pick up my flashlight and put on my gloves. I catch myself not panicking, my hands not shaking, getting off the diesel locomotive, running to the woman. She's lying on the embankment in a pool of her own blood. A candle with a flashlight in your face. Breathing through a wide-open mouth with split lips. The driver ran up from behind. They loaded her onto the locomotive, reported her to the attendant, and brought her to the station. They handed it over to the Ambulance workers. Let's go to the depot for delivery. Then the prosecutor's office said that she died in the evening of the same day. And I somehow didn't experience anything special.
    And then there were other cases, this time less interesting, because not the first.
    The attitude to death is philosophical. At work, for me, passengers are a faceless mass. Those who walk around the stations and near the tracks are no more animated by me than the roadside bushes. The suicidal person runs out on the track, lies down on his stomach on the rail and looks directly into your face, he sees you in the cab, you have applied emergency medicine, you already know that you will not have time to become, and just sit there. Then, when it disappears from sight, you get up from your seat and listen to the wheels. Crunch… And the car jumped a little… And inside is anger. That it is necessary to write a report, go to the police and prosecutor's office. And the fact that this man was still living and looking at you a minute ago, and now he's split open – somehow it doesn't matter.
    Well, and black humor, without it anywhere. You go, you see a drunk walking along the tracks, swaying. You say to the assistant: “Oh,” the day off is coming.” “Day off” – this is because after hitting a person, you can take a day off. Only no one does this, everyone is the same pofigisty.
    The death of loved ones is easily perceived. I don't think death is a bad thing. And I'm not afraid of her. Why be afraid of something you won't meet?

  5. In the army, I had experience of communicating with a person who worked for more than one year in such specifics. I was a junior sergeant on a young recruit, and naturally worked with new people who had just arrived in the army. I ask them about their achievements in civilian life, about their work, and so on. and here I come across a guy, I won't lie, but in my opinion he was about 19 years old, who claims to work in the morgue for several years. Of course, you're not going to believe that, so I started asking questions. And he answered, told how a friend of his at the age of 16 threw him on a part-time job, of course not official. At first, homeless people were taken out of the entrances, then somehow I got a permanent job in a ritual office, washed bodies, sometimes gave a lively look to my face, said terrible things, especially if you remember that you are looking at a very young guy. We honestly laughed with his stories, or rather with his simple approach to what was said, cynicism and only that. To the logical question, why? He answered very simply: “There was no money, but they paid well there, first of all, the work itself was specific, all the time relatives of the deceased threw money in, so that they would somehow do everything in a special way, you know. Secondly, not everyone is ready to spend a day with corpses, plus they were paid for black work.

    So, those who served in the army know that there are constant tests, especially for young people, to identify problems with stability and adaptation in the army, the possibility of access to weapons, and so on. And he was found to have suicidal tendencies. And I was told to be careful with it, you never know. And I'm sure he wasn't faking it, and he wasn't lying. The kid wanted to serve, just life for him, not so rosy.

  6. I guess I don't have a lot of experience yet to come up with a certain philosophical solution. But still.

    First, I don't see death. I can see the material I'm working with. Body. But I can't imagine that even a day ago this person was breathing. I never saw him alive. Personality disappears, only matter remains. And I think it's even good that I don't identify a person and their body. Otherwise, you can go crazy.

    Death is an instant. I think you should ask a resuscitator. These guys must have nerves of steel. That's exactly who looks death “in the face”.

    What else have I learned in my short work?… That everything is perishable, everything will end sometime. “The chess pieces will be in the same box at the end of the game.” That life is very short, and sometimes ends as expected, and sometimes very abruptly. It is not necessary to serve other people's ideals, no one needs it.

    Funeral rituals from the inside look very ridiculous and meaningless.

    As an example of professional deformity: a friend calls and says in a completely broken voice that his friend has died, asks for details. And you answer him, as if nothing had happened, in your cheerful, cheerful voice: “Yes, of course, I'll look in magazines.” And you almost tell the last joke as usual. That is, a person has grief, and you have a job.

    It's hard to put cancer on a living person. You'll look at the glass a hundred times, show it to your colleagues, and read the direction again. Yes, born in 1984… So you write your depressing conclusion. You can also “try on” yourself … Brr…

    In general, I don't think that pathologists have any radically different attitude to death. Maybe just a little bit more pofigistichnoe.

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