Staff role
Embalmer
Prepare bodies for interment in conformity with legal requirements.
O*NET reports this occupation under titles such as: Embalmer; Licensed Embalmer; Trade Embalmer
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.
- Join lips, using needles and thread or wire.
- Close incisions, using needles and sutures.
- Incise stomach and abdominal walls and probe internal organs, using trocar, to withdraw blood and waste matter from organs.
- Clean and disinfect areas in which bodies are prepared and embalmed.
- Dress bodies and place them in caskets.
- Make incisions in arms or thighs and drain blood from circulatory system and replace it with embalming fluid, using pump.
- Remove the deceased from place of death and transport to funeral home.
- Perform the duties of funeral directors, including coordinating funeral activities.
- Attach trocar to pump-tube, start pump, and repeat probing to force embalming fluid into organs.
- Reshape or reconstruct disfigured or maimed bodies when necessary, using dermasurgery techniques and materials such as clay, cotton, plaster of Paris, and wax.
- Pack body orifices with cotton saturated with embalming fluid to prevent escape of gases or waste matter.
- 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.
- Insert convex celluloid or cotton between eyeballs and eyelids to prevent slipping and sinking of eyelids.
Knowledge
- Customer and Personal Service
- Chemistry
- Psychology
- English Language
- Law and Government
- Administration and Management
- Biology
- Administrative
- Philosophy and Theology
Skills
- Speaking
- Active Listening
- Writing
- Critical Thinking
- Reading Comprehension
- Active Learning
- Monitoring
Abilities
- Near Vision
- Oral Comprehension
- Problem Sensitivity
- Oral Expression
- Arm-Hand Steadiness
- Speech Recognition
- Deductive Reasoning
- Information Ordering
- Speech Clarity
- Inductive Reasoning
- Visualization
- Manual Dexterity
- Written Comprehension
- Written Expression
- Finger Dexterity
- Control Precision
- Trunk Strength
- Visual Color Discrimination
This page includes information from the O*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.