If you think you want to be a toxicologist, you need to know first what services this field can offer. This will help you decide what area you would like to study so you can get a job that you love when you graduate from college. Keep reading and learn about two different services so you can get started on your career path.
1. Investigate Crime Scenes
One of the most common jobs of a toxicologist is to investigate crime scenes. You will be called when one or more dead bodies is found when it is suspected to be homicide. For example, if a body is found dead from natural causes, such as a heart attack, you would not be called.
You will remove the body or bodies from the crime scene and put them into a sterile bag to be transported to have an autopsy performed. This autopsy will show the cause of death.
When the autopsy is over, you will be called to examine samples that were taken from the body. This will help you determine if there were any toxins or any type of poison in the body and if the amounts of these toxins are high enough to kill someone.
The toxicologist will also take samples of different bodily fluids, such as blood, to determine if there is anything found in the system, such as alcohol or drugs.
2. Offer A Pharmaceutical Toxicology Consulting Service
If you like to work in labs and do research, you would like to have a job as a pharmaceutical toxicologist. With this, you will not work with the public. Instead, you will be in a laboratory researching the toxic effects of different drugs. You will check the toxic effect if there is an overdose, as well as what toxic effect there is for someone that takes only the dose they are prescribed.
Besides drugs, you may check the toxic effects of things like metals, such as lead, gases, such as carbon monoxide, solvents, such as benzene, and more. You may work closely with pharmacologists, or you may work for a pharmaceutical company to research the approval of medications before the medicine is available to the public. Once available, the pharmaceutical toxicologist will monitor how people are doing taking this medication.
Talk with toxicologists in your area to learn more about what they do. You can also contact colleges in to learn much more about this field. For more information, contact your local toxicology consulting services.
