About This Career

Prepares bodies for interment in conformity with legal requirements.

This career is part of the Human Services cluster Personal Care Services pathway.

A person in this career:

• Conforms to laws of health and sanitation and ensures that legal requirements concerning embalming are met.
• Applies cosmetics to impart lifelike appearance to the deceased.
• Joins lips, using needles and thread or wire.
• Incises stomach and abdominal walls and probes internal organs, using trocar, to withdraw blood and waste matter from organs.
• Closes incisions, using needles and sutures.
• Cleans and disinfects areas in which bodies are prepared and embalmed.
• Dresses bodies and places them in caskets.
• Makes incisions in arms or thighs and drains blood from circulatory system and replaces it with embalming fluid, using pump.
• Removes the deceased from place of death and transports to funeral home.
• Performs the duties of funeral directors, including coordinating funeral activities.

Working Conditions and Physical Demands

People who do this job report that:

• You would often handle loads up to 50 lbs., sometimes up to 100 lbs. You will need a lot of strength at this level.
• Work in this occupation involves use of protective items such as safety shoes, glasses, gloves, hearing protection, a hard hat, or personal flotation devices
• Exposure to pollutants, gases, dust, fumes, odors, poor ventilation, etc.
• Exposed to disease and infections more than once a month through work such as patient care, laboratory work, and sanitation control
• Work in this occupation involves using your hands to hold, control, and feel objects more than one-third of the time
• Exposed to conditions such as high voltage electricity, combustibles, explosives, and chemicals more than once a month
• Work in this occupation requires being inside most of the time
• Work in this occupation requires being outside most of the time

Working in this career involves (physical activities):

• Identifying color and seeing differences in color, including shades and brightness
• Seeing clearly up close
• Speaking clearly enough to be able to be understood by others
• Identifying and understanding the speech of another person
• Using abdominal and lower back muscles repeatedly or over time without tiring

Work Hours and Travel

• Irregular hours
• Weekend work