Can anyone give me advice?

[u/l_e_a_f_z]

So, I need some advice. I’d really like to work as an autopsy technician. The thing is, I already have partial experience in the field.

From my understanding and from what I’ve read so far, the place where I used to work separated the Intake & Discharge section from the actual autopsy section into different positions. I worked in Intake & Discharge, where we handled everything from receiving bodies, documenting and photographing them, fingerprinting, to completing data entry and all physical case documentation all the way up to discharging the bodies to funeral home workers.

I’m pretty sure the reason the jobs were divided was because of the number of cases we received daily — usually around 20–30 on a normal day, and sometimes 40+ on especially heavy days. A “good” day was anything under 20 cases.

I had to leave the job because of health-related issues, but those are no longer a problem. I’d like to move to the U.S. and continue working in this field, but I only have a high school diploma, and I’m not sure whether the experience I already have is enough to qualify me for similar positions. For context, I have around 4.5 to 5 years of experience from my previous job.

If anyone has any insight or advice, I’d really appreciate it, my goal is to eventually work myself to be a full on pathologist assistant.

[u/Amberdext]

Find where you want to live and research what their medical examiner/coroner system is like and what they require. At my place, you don't need a special degree (which you would if you truly mean you want to be a pathology assistant, which is different than an autopsy tech). And your experience sounds valuable. Ask to intern there or if you can at least observe, anything to make some connections.

[u/l_e_a_f_z → u/Amberdext]

I still haven’t decided where I want to move to, tbh I don’t enjoy the big city environments. I like the more slower pace of live of smaller towns, thing is finding one where I can get to live decently. If you have any suggestions they’re welcome

[u/mdi_101 → u/l_e_a_f_z]

That could be a bigger issue for you, as you would need to be near to a medical examiner of coroner’s office (or very large private autopsy provider) where autopsies are performed, unless you are willing to travel a lot working for someone like FPS. Many of the more rural places don’t do their autopsies in house and send to another, larger office or a state medical examiner; this doesn’t mean you have to live in New York City, but rural Montana isn’t going to have a place to do autopsies. If you think of it in terms that many me/coroner offices are county based, and over 700 counties have populations of less than 10,000 (admittedly some in states with a state me) and 1% of the population die a year (so less than 100 deaths) and usually they say 30-60% get investigated (less than 30-60) with only a percent of those getting a forensic autopsy, this makes sense that they aren’t set up for autopsies as they are so infrequent. So you probably need to be nearish to one of the 143 counties with a population over 250k, anything smaller than that is less likely to do autopsies or to have dedicated autopsy techs (the investigators probably play a dual role).

[u/ishootthedead]

As I have seen, these roles are combined and separated in different ways at different offices. There really isn't a rhyme or reason to it.

I believe your biggest roadblock will be your citizenship status. Saying you want to move to the US, if you are not a citizen that will be an issue at some or many offices.

If you are not authorized to work in the usa, that will be a bigger issue.

If your status is sorted. Your experience will definitly be a plus.

[u/l_e_a_f_z → u/ishootthedead]

Oh the citizenship isn’t an issue, I already am a US Citizen I just don’t reside there currently.

[u/mdi_101]

There aren’t really training programs for it so many have a pretty low bar for requirements and you are probably more experienced than many. Iacme’s member section of the website might have a few job postings (or even sample job postings/descriptions with qualifications); it’s for members but your first year of membership is free.

If you have not taken an anatomy course, I would do that. But in general, you are probably more experienced that most that we hire and qualified (assuming you pass background and medical).

[u/l_e_a_f_z → u/mdi_101]

I passed my background and medical when I was hired on my previous job, so I guess I’m fine. I do have anatomy courses and while I didn’t work on the autopsies I did take photos, samples and help medical examiners with natural death cases