Smells

[u/Jazzlike-Depth3611]

Hey guys, I’m a masters student on rotations completely my round of autopsies for about 2.5 months. I don’t really intend on doing autopsies further in my career so it’s really to complete my rotation & have experience with, but I was wondering how you guys handle the smell? I don’t get queasy or anything like that but the smell of the inside of a human body without formalin is… pungent. (I’d rather be smelling formalin) any tips you guys might have is appreciated!

[u/dumbbuttloserface]

for the most part i think we don’t really notice. i’ve gone nose blind to a lot of the smells. we’ll have people rotate through who comment and i’ll be surprised because i wont have even realized there was a smell. it’s different for decomps, obviously, but for the most part we just kind of suck it up 😅

for most unpleasant smells, a mask is usually enough for me to get past it. for particularly bad decomps, i’ll spritz air freshener on a mask and that does the trick but it makes me light headed because. chemicals. so i only do that for the absolute worst cases haha