Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner

Judy Melinek · T.J. Mitchell

Aug 2014 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

“Fun…and full of smart science. Fans of CSI—the real kind—will want to read it” (The Washington Post): A young forensic pathologist’s “rookie season” as a NYC medical examiner, and the hair-raising cases that shaped her as a physician and human being.

Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. While her husband and their toddler held down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation—performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy’s two years of training, taking readers behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple, including a firsthand account of the events of September 11, the subsequent anthrax bio-terrorism attack, and the disastrous crash of American Airlines Flight 587.

An unvarnished portrait of the daily life of medical examiners—complete with grisly anecdotes, chilling crime scenes, and a welcome dose of gallows humor—Working Stiff offers a glimpse into the daily life of one of America’s most arduous professions, and the unexpected challenges of shuttling between the domains of the living and the dead. The body never lies—and through the murders, accidents, and suicides that land on her table, Dr. Melinek lays bare the truth behind the glamorized depictions of autopsy work on television to reveal the secret story of the real morgue. “Haunting and illuminating...the stories from her average workdays…transfix the reader with their demonstration that medical science can diagnose and console long after the heartbeat stops” (The New York Times).

Ratings and reviews

An unscripted true story or what it's like to be a medical examiner along with the rawer realest account of what it was like to be one in New York City after 9/11 terrorist attacks. I could not & did not want to put it down. Matter of fact I feel asleep while reading it more than once.

I loved this "Sample" and would love to read more but I just can't afford it right now.I spent most of my career working as both a EMT and a paper pusher or Unit Secretary so not to much that I hav not seen.I always have like to learn all that I can about medical science.This book is riviting and very hard to put down.

Reading this book really put a different perspective in life, death and moving on. Never having felt loss of a human being I read this book because I grew up in NYC, was barely 12 when Sept. 11 happened and grew into a technologist working across the street from 520 First Avenue. This book revealed the darkest and grime history of Sept 11 that no television reporter has ever given. This book gave me insight on what the aftermath of one of the worst attacks in USA History. I commend Dr. Melinek and all her colleagues on the work their life has been dedicated to.

About the author

Judy Melinek is a forensic pathologist and an associate clinical professor at UCSF Medical Center. She earned her college degree from Harvard and received her medical degree and pathology residency training at UCLA. She has worked and lived in San Francisco with her husband, T.J. Mitchell, and their children since 2004.

T.J. Mitchell graduated with an English degree from Harvard and worked in the film industry before becoming a full-time stay-at-home dad in 2000.