FUNS 163 - Funeral Service Microbiology and Pathology

Credits: 2

Description
This course will instruct students in the pathology and microbiology information they will need to have to safely and accurately provide funeral services. This will include how diseases can affect the body and thus affect embalming and restorative art, how to communicate with medical personnel and non-medical family members, what precautions are needed to ensure public safety as well as the safety of family members and funeral staff, and control measures needed to recognize, isolate, and prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

Student Learning Outcomes

Define terminology related to general microbiology and pathology with emphasis on terms associated with funeral service, disease, and embalming.
Identify the benefits and any drawbacks or limitations of postmortem examinations, tissue and/or organ donation, and medical research.
Discuss infectious diseases of the human body including what factors are responsible and what systems are impacted within the body.
Describe how sanitation, disinfection, embalming, and public health are impacted by microbiological influences as they pertain to funeral service.
Communicate microbiological infectious disease and physical changes due to disease, at appropriate levels with medical personnel and a decedent’s family.
Explain the controls available to protect funeral service personnel, family members of infected decedents, as well as the general public from contagion and/or infection from human remains.
Demonstrate how to protect funeral service personnel and the public against the transmission of diseases through the use of universal precautions.
Compare and contrast the ethics of sharing information about a public health issue relevant to a decedent’s remains versus the family’s legal right to privacy.

Prerequisite: Instructor permission
Corequisite: None

Graded: Letter Grade