Embalmers
Embalmers prepare bodies for interment in conformity with legal requirements.
An embalmer is a highly trained expert with a dedicated skillset. To become an embalmer, one must attain very specific credentials and land a position with a licensed funeral home, laboratory, or research facility.
The embalmer's job description and responsibilities of an embalmer include embalming and preparing the bodies of the deceased for funeral services (burials or cremations), removing blood off the deceased’s body and replacing it with embalming fluid, carrying out complex rebuilding to disguise damage and applying cosmetics to provide a peaceful appearance, joining lips using needles and thread, dressing bodies and placing them in a casket, closing incisions using needles and sutures, maintaining records such as lists of clothing or valuables delivered with a body, names of persons embalmed and list of embalmed body and more.
To qualify as an embalmer, one must be recognized and accredited by a mortuary science school. Aspirants can get practical experience working part-time in a funeral home. After getting formal training, embalmers must serve an apprenticeship and pass the state board exam.
To be upstanding in embalming, one must be extremely sensitive to the feelings of others and be able to feel empathy and grief they are going through. Embalmers must have a very strong stomach when it comes to sights and odours, be able to use a delicate touch, have a high level of attention to detail, admiration for various religions, and be ever aware of laws and regulations. An average embalmer salary depends on skills and experienced gained over the years.
Qualifications
Every career requires an element of study and academic qualification, and there can be several study routes and pathways you can take. In following any academic pathway you will study subjects that contribute to the specialised knowledge required to achieve your career goals. These qualifications provide a future employer with the evidence that you have the desired knowledge, understanding and experience of their industry, so it’s important to consider the various types of qualifications available to you and to understand how they can boost your career and create opportunities for you.
- B.Sc. Embalming and Mortuary Science
Tasks
- Conform to laws of health and sanitation and ensure that legal requirements concerning embalming are met.
- Apply cosmetics to impart lifelike appearance to the deceased.
- Incise stomach and abdominal walls and probe internal organs, using trocar, to withdraw blood and waste matter from organs.
- Close incisions, using needles and sutures.
- Reshape or reconstruct disfigured or maimed bodies when necessary, using dermasurgery techniques and materials such as clay, cotton, plaster of Paris, and wax.
- Make incisions in arms or thighs and drain blood from circulatory system and replace it with embalming fluid, using pump.
- Dress bodies and place them in caskets.
- Perform the duties of funeral directors, including coordinating funeral activities.
- Join lips, using needles and thread or wire.
- Conduct interviews to arrange for the preparation of obituary notices, to assist with the selection of caskets or urns, and to determine the location and time of burials or cremations.
Progression Routes
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