Speaker 1: It's me, the drop dead gorgeous at Simone. I know
Speaker 1: not everyone in this world is as physically blessed as
Speaker 1: I am, but it's okay because I'm making a space
Speaker 1: for the extremely regular normal people that walk among us.
Speaker 1: Except there's one catch. These normals are concealing something that
Speaker 1: makes them interesting, exciting, worthy of our time. What is
Speaker 1: that thing? Well, I don't know, but I'll slice it
Speaker 1: open and chisel away until I have the truth. This
Speaker 1: is concealed with me atsimone oh. Time for the guest
Speaker 1: roll the time. Hi.
Speaker 2: My name is Joanna. I'm from New Zealand but moved
Speaker 2: to Australia a few years ago and just became a citizen.
Speaker 2: I work as a doctor and spent many years studying.
Speaker 2: I ran my first marathon last year and enjoy swimming,
Speaker 2: reading and gardening.
Speaker 1: Hello, Joeanna, how are you?
Speaker 2: I am great? Thank you Joe, for sure, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I'll be beautiful. Well, hello Joe, my name's out. Love
Speaker 1: to meet you. To meet you all right now, we've
Speaker 1: never met before in my life that I know of, correct,
Speaker 1: Maybe in a past life We'll never know, maybe maybe,
Speaker 1: But you're here in front of me. You've got you
Speaker 1: put the sparkles on today. You've got your Diamonte stars
Speaker 1: and lightning bolts all over your beautiful blaze that resistant
Speaker 1: every day. Are you an everyday sparkler or is this
Speaker 1: a special occasion sparkler?
Speaker 2: Oh, it has to be a special occasion sparkle.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see, I would know I'm an everyday sparkler.
Speaker 1: A special occasion is when I'm in all Matt and
Speaker 1: people go what's going on? That's how I make a statement.
Speaker 1: If I want to do something for a red carpet,
Speaker 1: I just go completely dull Matt and people go, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's really new. That's that's amazing for you.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: I'm very first the top. So you're from New Zealand originally?
Speaker 1: What made you take the jump over across the ditch?
Speaker 2: A job opportunity that I couldn't turn down?
Speaker 1: Well, that is good. We love jobs now, I mean
Speaker 1: I didn't have one, but I'm sure people that need
Speaker 1: jobs love them too. I just dress up as a lady,
Speaker 1: but I think I do it well.
Speaker 2: You do?
Speaker 1: And a doctor? Now? Am I allowed to go into
Speaker 1: what doc type of doctor you are? Or is that
Speaker 1: still a mystery?
Speaker 2: It's probably a mystery, Okay, I won't.
Speaker 1: Poke on the doctor. Note, I won't poke on the
Speaker 1: doctor date. And you ran a marathon?
Speaker 2: I did. How That's what I ask myself.
Speaker 1: Do you have to train for it?
Speaker 2: I did, and it was probably one of the hardest
Speaker 2: things I've ever done. Yeah, but I did it.
Speaker 1: What happens when you've done it? What happens then?
Speaker 2: Do you go, Well, you get a T shirt, you
Speaker 2: get some bananas at the end, and you go that
Speaker 2: was worthwhile. I'm so glad I did that. Everything hurts.
Speaker 2: But look, I've got a banana.
Speaker 1: I hope you've put that banana on the wall. Like
Speaker 1: the current at the NGV, there's a banana duct taped
Speaker 1: to a wall at the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my banana.
Speaker 1: Oh, I see, I see our thoughts. So I thought.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna ask you three questions, and from the
Speaker 1: answers to those three questions, I have to try and
Speaker 1: work out what it is you're concealing from me today,
Speaker 1: Miss doctor Joe. Okay, all right, So the first question
Speaker 1: I have for you is what was your favorite board
Speaker 1: game growing up?
Speaker 2: Well, that would probably have to be Cludo Cludo.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now that's the one where it's like mister Murder Mystery.
Speaker 2: It is Miss Scarlet and the Library with the Dagger.
Speaker 1: Wow. I've actually never played Cludo because I feel like
Speaker 1: there's too much reading involved. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I like reading?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's good. Do you have any tips for Cludo?
Speaker 2: You just have to write down the answers as you go, okay,
Speaker 2: and then you can systematically work it out.
Speaker 1: Systematically. That's a big word today, Joe. All Right, I
Speaker 1: can't spell that. I've just written s y. I'll remember
Speaker 1: what that means. Okay, Cludo cludo, butana doctor doctor banana cludo. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I've got so far. Question number two, if you
Speaker 1: could pick one obscure instrument to be proficient at, what
Speaker 1: would it be?
Speaker 2: Well, I would definitely have to be the organ.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, the organ. Now. I see a little
Speaker 1: glint in your eye when you say organ, and something
Speaker 1: tells me you're not talking about the musical instrument. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's a viber picking up.
Speaker 2: I could be wronging all sorts of organs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like electric ones. One's a blow, a lot of
Speaker 1: a ones. You're with blood organ, all right, banana organ,
Speaker 1: dr Marathon Okay, new Zealand.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: The final question after you is if you could get
Speaker 1: the answer to one question, what would it be?
Speaker 2: What happens after death?
Speaker 1: Wife? After death? Okay? Dead? All right? Dead banana doctor organ,
Speaker 1: New Zealand, dead bananas, get rid of banana. That's a
Speaker 1: red herring. Cludo mystery mystery, mystery, murder mystery because I'm
Speaker 1: obviously picking up organ, which is like body things included,
Speaker 1: which is like murder. But then life after death and
Speaker 1: that I don't know what that means. All right now
Speaker 1: I'm going dead things, things that go inside dead things
Speaker 1: and dead people. I love that. Are you a moutician?
Speaker 2: I am a forensic pathologist. I perform autopsies and work
Speaker 2: closely with the coroner to determine the cause of death
Speaker 2: in certain cases with closed you were.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a banana. Did you know? When I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I always wanted to be a forensic pathologist. Well, literally,
Speaker 1: I did work experience, not with the actual dead bodies,
Speaker 1: but I went and worked and was looking at cells
Speaker 1: and stuff for every Oh my goodness, how niche ah
Speaker 1: ah close but those cinger. No, Joe is not a mortician,
Speaker 1: she is a forensic pathologists. Close iwit's close. I don't
Speaker 1: want to name more. Please Okay, So we hear with
Speaker 1: Joe the forensic pathologist. Oh my goodness, did you wash
Speaker 1: your hands today? Ah? Good question, no comment, all right.
Speaker 1: So for people that don't know what a forensic pathologist is,
Speaker 1: please explain it to us here.
Speaker 2: So, a forensic pathologist is a medical doctor who specializes
Speaker 2: in forensic pathology. Now, pathology itself is the study of disease,
Speaker 2: it causes, how you diagnose it, And a forensic pathologist
Speaker 2: in particular has interest in injuries, how they're caused, how
Speaker 2: they might cause death or contribute to death.
Speaker 1: So to become a forensic pathologist, do you have to do?
Speaker 1: What's the pipeline to forensic pathology? How do you get there?
Speaker 1: How do you start working with living things dead things?
Speaker 2: It's pretty diverse. For most of us. You do your
Speaker 2: medical degree and then go in and work in the hospitals,
Speaker 2: and for some people they love that, for some of
Speaker 2: us not so much. And you develop an interest in pathology,
Speaker 2: which is all about problem solving and diagnosing disease and
Speaker 2: getting to the bottom of things, which is part of
Speaker 2: the perks of the job. And then from there, for me,
Speaker 2: it evolved from surgical training, loving pathology, combining the two
Speaker 2: and doing forensic pathology, and once you get in you
Speaker 2: realize it is one of the best jobs in the world.
Speaker 1: Because you are doing a real life Cludo.
Speaker 2: It is. It is a real life Cluto.
Speaker 1: Now, did you see a big mass intake in the
Speaker 1: forensic pathology and biomedical science world thanks to shows like
Speaker 1: CSI and NCI and Law and Order.
Speaker 2: It's definitely helped increase the visuals on our job and
Speaker 2: people know what it is. People know what we do,
Speaker 2: and I think it has increased the interest. Also, then
Speaker 2: when people realize it's thirteen to sixteen years of medical
Speaker 2: and specialist training, then the interest sort of drops off
Speaker 2: from there.
Speaker 1: Look, I'll said earlier, I wanted to be a forensic pathologist,
Speaker 1: look at me now. Didn't quite make it. But you
Speaker 1: know what, that's fine. At least we've got you in
Speaker 1: the world. But I think that's an issue that happened
Speaker 1: too with the shows like CSAs. People think the person
Speaker 1: just does everything. They're like, oh, they're going to be
Speaker 1: going spraying for the blood over there, and then they're
Speaker 1: going to be in the lab do it cutting people.
Speaker 2: Up, and they think that we do it in six
Speaker 2: inch stilettos and miniskirts.
Speaker 1: Do you actually do autopsies yes? Is that like your
Speaker 1: main specialty that you're like, all right, bring them in.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's one of the tools that we've got to
Speaker 2: investigate death. So we have many We have our medical knowledge,
Speaker 2: what we read from the medical records or from the circumstances.
Speaker 2: We have a CT scan and soon to be an
Speaker 2: MRI scan so we can get radiology imaging of the deceased.
Speaker 2: And we have autopsies, which enables us to examine everything internally,
Speaker 2: look for diseases, abnormalities, injuries, see what's going on on
Speaker 2: the inside.
Speaker 1: Would your scans would they be preferable because they're non
Speaker 1: intrusive for some people, or is most time you're like,
Speaker 1: we just got to get in there and have a squiz.
Speaker 2: It really depends on the case a lot of the time,
Speaker 2: and I think societally there's less comfort with autopsies and
Speaker 2: internal examinations. Autopsies have a bit of a bad reputation,
Speaker 2: but what they really are is exploratory surgery. It enables
Speaker 2: us to go in and find out what's wrong, gives
Speaker 2: us information. But in many cases, the CT gives us
Speaker 2: that information. If there's a motor vehicle accident, we can
Speaker 2: see the injuries. We can see the fractures or the bleeding,
Speaker 2: and in about half of our cases that are reported
Speaker 2: to the coroner, they don't need a full autopsy.
Speaker 1: Are you studying to be a surgeon or specializing in
Speaker 1: sur gin practices? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So when I was at medical school, I always wanted
Speaker 2: to do surgery. That's what I wanted, And then got
Speaker 2: out of medical school, got on the surgical training program,
Speaker 2: did the first part exams, and the more I did it,
Speaker 2: the less I liked it. And I was getting to
Speaker 2: that stage where like many junior doctors, I was tired, jaded,
Speaker 2: just completely burnt out. And I thought, I'll take a
Speaker 2: year off do pathology because these pathologists walk into the room.
Speaker 2: And there was one in his jeans and his leather
Speaker 2: jacket and he seemed really smart and really cool, and
Speaker 2: I thought about it, no more than he looks neat,
Speaker 2: I'll go and hang out in that department for a year.
Speaker 1: That's all it takes.
Speaker 2: Loved it so much I never went back to surgery.
Speaker 1: Right, I guess you'd at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: So I get to do surgery still, but I don't
Speaker 2: have to worry about things working again afterwards.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm a bit of a different person
Speaker 1: in that this stuff doesn't give me the eg or
Speaker 1: does it make me feel uncomfortable. I think death is
Speaker 1: a really difficult topic for a lot of people to grasp.
Speaker 1: Have you ever suffered a bit of I don't know,
Speaker 1: stigma against your job and your profession and what you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think people are in equal parts fascinated by
Speaker 2: it and can't understand how you can do it as
Speaker 2: a job. There is definitely stigma. A lot of it
Speaker 2: comes from my fellow medical practitioners. They don't understand why
Speaker 2: you wouldn't want to be in a hospital dealing with patients.
Speaker 2: Whereas I say, I still get to deal with patients,
Speaker 2: but I also get to deal with police and doctors
Speaker 2: and lawyers and all sorts of people, which is really
Speaker 2: fun and diverse and an interesting part of the job.
Speaker 2: And the stigma and he comes when people don't understand
Speaker 2: what it is, when we realize it's actually medicine. It's
Speaker 2: finding answers for families. I mean, where the deceased last doctor?
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: We get to explain what happened. It's a really privileged
Speaker 2: position to be the first person in some cases to know,
Speaker 2: so what happened to this person and what they went
Speaker 2: through and to be able to provide answers and explain that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally not to lead into that stigma, but has
Speaker 1: anything spooky happened? Any ghosts?
Speaker 2: We just employ them as part of the stuff.
Speaker 1: Good. Yeah, good, you're like, well, why are you here?
Speaker 1: Can you just hand me that over there please?
Speaker 2: Most of the creepy things would be creepy crawleyes.
Speaker 1: Oh really, well, that's the thing. So you would get patients.
Speaker 1: Do you call them patients or do you call them
Speaker 1: We call them the deceased. You would get the deceased
Speaker 1: in lots of different circumstances and what's the word condition conditions? Yes,
Speaker 1: you get them in all different types of conditions. So
Speaker 1: what could this range? With someone who just looks like
Speaker 1: they've fallen asleep or someone that is covered in bugs.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, we get everything, particularly in summertime when it's a
Speaker 2: lot hotter. Oh yeah, is decomposed a lot faster in
Speaker 2: the heat. But then there's the winter time phenomenon where
Speaker 2: people die in bed with their electric blankets on. Ah,
Speaker 2: and the heat's not so great. They don't look like
Speaker 2: they've just fallen asleep. So yeah, we get a real
Speaker 2: range and you learn to expect and see what you find.
Speaker 1: Is there a favorite time of year to work? Is
Speaker 1: there one peer where you're like everyone that comes in
Speaker 1: is genuinely pleasant to work with.
Speaker 2: Public holidays and school holidays because everyone goes out of Victoria.
Speaker 1: That's true, Like no one here.
Speaker 2: It all quietens down.
Speaker 1: Are you so you're working for Like, would you work
Speaker 1: with the police? Does that mean you have to go
Speaker 1: to court?
Speaker 2: It does?
Speaker 1: It does.
Speaker 2: So there's always somebody on call twenty four to seven.
Speaker 2: So if there's a homicide or a suspicious death, we
Speaker 2: can go out to the scene for that, or we'll
Speaker 2: do the autopsy for that. And so we work closely
Speaker 2: with the police from that point of view. And yes,
Speaker 2: we go to court probably ten times or so for
Speaker 2: giving evidence for those cases. Is that annoying, No, it's
Speaker 2: part of the job that just every day.
Speaker 1: If you're lying, we're going to ask our other specialist person.
Speaker 2: Oh, we certainly get that from defense lawyers. They call
Speaker 2: you miss to try and downplay it, play the games,
Speaker 2: but we know the games and you just don't let
Speaker 2: it get to you.
Speaker 1: So that also means in my head, you're just working
Speaker 1: at wherever you work. But do you have to go
Speaker 1: out to actual crime scenes as well? Sometimes we do.
Speaker 2: We don't get to go to anywhere near as many
Speaker 2: as we'd like. But it's come on, well, if it's
Speaker 2: in a scenic location, it's true. Ice cream on the
Speaker 2: way back.
Speaker 1: I know that is true. Once you've done your job,
Speaker 1: that is true.
Speaker 2: Not an ice s cream on the way there that
Speaker 2: would be performed.
Speaker 1: Do you ever still get surprised? Are there some things
Speaker 1: or if you feel like you've pretty much seen it
Speaker 1: all now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's not a lot now that human imagination can
Speaker 2: think of to do that makes me think, really, because
Speaker 2: I've said that so many times that I just think, okay,
Speaker 2: well we'll roll with that. I won't think about that
Speaker 2: too hard, and we'll just go with what we've got.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in your first years where they're like, oh okay, yep.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely, humans are very creative, and the weird and
Speaker 2: wonderful things that we can do to ourselves we can
Speaker 2: do to other people. Often things that start with a
Speaker 2: group of blokes with beer and someone saying, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: watch this, it'll be awesome. Often ends not so well.
Speaker 1: The lad's the lad's the lads.
Speaker 2: Luckily I'm not one of them exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm one of the gals. Are there any high profile
Speaker 1: cases you've worked on that you probably can't talk about,
Speaker 1: but maybe you could like allude to. Are the ones
Speaker 1: that I'm winking, by the.
Speaker 2: Way, the ones that always get get mentioned. That I
Speaker 2: was fortunate, unfortunate enough to be on call for was
Speaker 2: the tragedies of Euridicity Dixon and i am Asawe. I
Speaker 2: was on call for both of those cases. When those
Speaker 2: poor young ladies came to us, they shocked me. I
Speaker 2: didn't mean to be flippant with my answer before, but
Speaker 2: there are still cases that do shock you. And that
Speaker 2: was them, the randomness, the degree of injury, and there
Speaker 2: are still cases which do impact you. We may be
Speaker 2: able to approach a number of cases in a scientific way,
Speaker 2: but there are still some where you think, no, I'm
Speaker 2: still human, I'm still a member of this community, and
Speaker 2: I don't think that's okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, which brings me to my next question is
Speaker 1: you obviously deal with a lot of heavy and impactful situations.
Speaker 1: How do you deal with that.
Speaker 2: Our workplace is very proactive with that, with offering support,
Speaker 2: whether it's something formal and regular that you want, whether
Speaker 2: it's something on a as you need it basis, but
Speaker 2: also that informal support we have from having a great
Speaker 2: bunch of pathologists. There's sixteen of us. We're a wonderful
Speaker 2: bunch of people and we're a very tight team, and
Speaker 2: that support that everyone gives each other is one of
Speaker 2: the most invaluable things. And getting through these cases where
Speaker 2: you can go into a colleagues's office and just say
Speaker 2: had a bit of a rough case and they'll understand
Speaker 2: and you can talk it through. And that might just
Speaker 2: be going out for a cup of coffee, might be
Speaker 2: going out for something a bit stronger. But having that
Speaker 2: support and that friendship in the group is one of
Speaker 2: the key things. But certainly the employer is really proactive.
Speaker 2: They recognize that everyone is at risk.
Speaker 1: Is there ever a circumstance where you can't work out
Speaker 1: the cause of death and you can't work out what's happened?
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably about under five percent of cases we'd have
Speaker 2: it where the cause of death is not able to
Speaker 2: be ascertained or determined. Despite everything that we can do,
Speaker 2: and there's a number of reasons for that. Times it's
Speaker 2: because the body is in a state of decomposition and
Speaker 2: we've just lost data because it's decomposed. Sometimes it's young
Speaker 2: people that die, and it's often commonly in young people
Speaker 2: because the cause is not something structural in the heart
Speaker 2: or the lungs, or the brain or any of the
Speaker 2: other organs. It's something genetic that causes the heart not
Speaker 2: to function properly or the brain not to function properly
Speaker 2: in cause seizures. And so we work really closely with
Speaker 2: the Children's hospital with Royal Melbourne Hospital and the geneticists
Speaker 2: and the cardiologists there to get the person and their
Speaker 2: family looked at and tested because these things can run
Speaker 2: in families, so it's really important to get them followed
Speaker 2: up to prevent deaths in the future. So unascertained as
Speaker 2: a cause of death doesn't necessarily mean I don't know.
Speaker 2: It means I haven't found anything anatomically wrong, or there's
Speaker 2: nothing in the toxicology or the biochemistry or on the
Speaker 2: CT scan, but I suspect there's something else going on
Speaker 2: and it may be genetic, and we refer the families
Speaker 2: off in that case when is.
Speaker 1: The cutoff point for you to stop trying to work
Speaker 1: it out? They all right, put it down, Love, Come on, Joe,
Speaker 1: We've got to move on.
Speaker 2: I think it depends on the case. The younger the
Speaker 2: person is, the more you're going to do for them,
Speaker 2: because you really know that it's important to get to
Speaker 2: the bottom of it.
Speaker 1: I was listing something the other day and they'd found
Speaker 1: remains like six to twelve months later and they could
Speaker 1: still work out the cause of death from it. How
Speaker 1: does that? That is the craziest puzzle in the world.
Speaker 1: How do you How do you look at a stack
Speaker 1: of bones and go, oh, yeah, this happened.
Speaker 2: Hell depends. There can actually still be quite a lot
Speaker 2: of information you can get. There might even after six
Speaker 2: to twelve months, there might be little bits of soft
Speaker 2: tissue left that can give you clues. Or if it's
Speaker 2: an injury that's damaged the bone. We work closely with
Speaker 2: anthropologists who are experts in looking at bones, looking at abnormalodies,
Speaker 2: and they can help us to tell if that bone
Speaker 2: e injury is something that happened after death, or you know,
Speaker 2: from animal scavenging or something. I guess if it's something
Speaker 2: happened before so you can actually still get a lot
Speaker 2: of information. And those are the cases we actually do
Speaker 2: spend a lot of time on, because paradoxically, the less
Speaker 2: of a person you have, the longer it takes to
Speaker 2: look at everything and try and figure it out.
Speaker 1: Does it feel like making the world a better place?
Speaker 1: How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2: Well, apart from skipping out of the office each day
Speaker 2: with you know, bluebirds and rainbows and haply singing a
Speaker 2: happy tune. No, it's a wonderful job. It's really rewarding.
Speaker 2: Every day is different. Yeah, I mean I get to
Speaker 2: come and chat with you.
Speaker 1: Oh pretty good, isn't it. I get to go to court,
Speaker 1: I get to.
Speaker 2: Go to the crime scenes. It's a really rewarding job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. I like what I do. But you
Speaker 1: literally help people, ash, I didn't think i'd walk out
Speaker 1: feeling bad about myself today. To close out, I want
Speaker 1: to see if you can give you a hypothetical situation,
Speaker 1: and if you give me a few clues as to
Speaker 1: something you might be finding during an autopsy, and I
Speaker 1: want to see if I can determine the cause of death.
Speaker 1: I'll work out I'm going to be Pluto person. I
Speaker 1: get my pen ready. Is there a banana involved? There is? Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, okay, okay with you all right.
Speaker 2: So we have a because I'm a new Zealander, he'll
Speaker 2: have to be sixty six, okay, sixty six year old man?
Speaker 1: Yes, I like that.
Speaker 2: Was eating a banana and he developed heaviness in his chests,
Speaker 2: collapsed and couldn't be resuscitated.
Speaker 1: Okay, right, couldn't be blown.
Speaker 2: He's got high blood pressure okay, diabetes, and he smokes
Speaker 2: and he hasn't been to the gym.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it ever describing my father like this.
Speaker 1: This is so embarrassing. No, I don't have fun anyway, Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So he's unhealthy. He's pretty unhealthy. Bad cholesterol, yes, probably undoubtedly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: bad cholesterol, high blood pressure, eating banana. I think the
Speaker 1: banana's red herring again. Actually, he died because he finally
Speaker 1: had something healthy to eat. His body went into shock.
Speaker 1: He's been eating chicken nuggets his whole life, and he
Speaker 1: had the banana and his body was like what this?
Speaker 1: And then he felt heavy and dropped to the ground.
Speaker 2: Did I sorted? Solved? Solved?
Speaker 1: Did he have a heart attack? Yes, because of the banana.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to do my internship for the second time.
Speaker 1: I'll stick it the whole way through this time. She's
Speaker 1: got to fix the lighting. I hate fluorescent lightings. Ah,
Speaker 1: and I think the moral to this story is don't
Speaker 1: trust bananas, and I'll take that to the bank. You've
Speaker 1: been listening to an iHeart Australia production concealed with Art Simone.
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