How to become Embalmer in 2024

Embalmer Prepare bodies for interment in conformity with legal requirements.

Embalmer is Also Know as

In different settings, Embalmer is titled as

  • Embalmer
  • Licensed Embalmer
  • Trade Embalmer

Education and Training of Embalmer

Embalmer is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Embalmer

Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.

Education Required for Embalmer

Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.

Degrees Related to Embalmer

Training Required for Embalmer

Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Embalmer in different industries are

What Do Embalmer do?

  • 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.
  • Attach trocar to pump-tube, start pump, and repeat probing to force embalming fluid into organs.
  • Perform special procedures necessary for remains that are to be transported to other states or overseas, or where death was caused by infectious disease.
  • Maintain records, such as itemized lists of clothing or valuables delivered with body and names of persons embalmed.
  • Insert convex celluloid or cotton between eyeballs and eyelids to prevent slipping and sinking of eyelids.
  • Wash and dry bodies, using germicidal soap and towels or hot air dryers.
  • Arrange for transporting the deceased to another state for interment.
  • Supervise funeral attendants and other funeral home staff.
  • Pack body orifices with cotton saturated with embalming fluid to prevent escape of gases or waste matter.
  • Assist with placing caskets in hearses and organize cemetery processions.
  • Serve as pallbearers, attend visiting rooms, and provide other assistance to the bereaved.
  • Direct casket and floral display placement and arrange guest seating.
  • Arrange funeral home equipment and perform general maintenance.
  • Assist coroners at death scenes or at autopsies, file police reports, and testify at inquests or in court, if employed by a coroner.
  • Press diaphragm to evacuate air from lungs.
  • Remove the deceased from place of death and transport to funeral home.
  • Clean and disinfect areas in which bodies are prepared and embalmed.

Qualities of Good Embalmer

  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.

Tools Used by Embalmer

  • Adult trocars
  • Air brushes
  • Aneurysm needles
  • Angular forceps
  • Arm and hand positioners
  • Axillary drain tubes
  • Barber scissors
  • Bistoury knives
  • Blending brushes
  • Body bags
  • Body positioners
  • Calvarium clamps
  • Carotid tubes
  • Casket lifters
  • Centrifugal force pumps
  • Cosmetic brushes
  • Curved arterial tubes
  • Curved Kelly forceps
  • Curved suture needles
  • Cuticle scissors
  • Desktop computers
  • Electric mortuary aspirators
  • Embalming bulb syringes
  • Embalming fluid pumps
  • Embalming injector needles
  • Embalming machines
  • Embalming syringes
  • Embalming vein drainage tubing
  • Emergency eye wash stations
  • Extremity positioners
  • Eye suture scissors
  • Femoral drain tubes
  • Fixation forceps
  • Gravity injectors
  • Hairpin injectors
  • Head blocks
  • Head rests
  • Highlighting brushes
  • Hydraulic body lifts
  • Hydro-electric aspirators
  • Hypodermic needles
  • Iliac drain tubes
  • Infant arterial tubes
  • Infant trocars
  • Injector needle guns
  • Iris scissors
  • Jugular drain tubes
  • Laptop computers
  • Lining brushes
  • Lister bandage scissors
  • Lower body positioners
  • Mayo scissors
  • Mortuary lifts
  • Nasal tube aspirators
  • Non-clogging post aspirators
  • Paint sprayers
  • Personal computers
  • Powder dusting brushes
  • Protective hoods
  • Protective medical face masks
  • Protective medical gloves
  • Protective shoe covers
  • Refrigerated body storage cabinets
  • Ring cutters
  • Safety coveralls
  • Safety goggles
  • Spring forceps
  • Steam autoclaves
  • Stippling brushes
  • Straight arterial tubes
  • Straight Kelly forceps
  • Straight surgical scissors
  • Stryker saws
  • Surgical razors
  • Surgical scalpels
  • Suture needle holders
  • Thumb forceps
  • Tinting brushes
  • Trocar sterilizers
  • Tube occluding forceps

Technology Skills required for Embalmer

  • Belmar & Associates Mortware
  • Corel WordPerfect Office Suite
  • Custom Data Systems Sterling Management Software
  • FPA Software MACCS
  • HMIS Advantage
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft Office software
  • Microsoft Word
  • Twin Tier Technologies MIMS
  • Web browser software