DR. WHO
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
GEORGE NICHOLS, MD
AUTHOR Aaron Burch
D
r. George Nichols has spent more time among the dead
than most. a plush depiction of what a flesh-eating virus looks like, complete
with stitched in-fabric knife and fork.
The website for Commonwealth Medical Legal Services,
Inc., of which Dr. Nichols is the founder and president,
estimates that he has performed ‘in excess of 10,000
autopsies, including the exhumation and examination of
U.S. President Zachary Taylor, and supervised 30,000 more.’
He's noticeably direct, however, and admits he personally stopped
counting sometime after his 5,000 th autopsy. Without proper vetting, the question is asked: “What does your
dad do?” Dr. Nichols answers quickly, “Well he’s dead, but we can
go up for an interview at Cave Hill Cemetery if you like.”
“I didn’t see my first dead body until I was a medical student,” Dr.
Nichols recalled. “There were four of us standing over a sarcophagus
with a hinged metal top. You take that off, and there’s your body.
The body is naked, embalmed and face up. The first thing we were
asked to do is carefully wrap the head, hands and feet in swaddling
cloth. This begins the process of dehumanization. Then, we turned
the body face down. The first incision is made on the back, so the
student is working with a large swath of flesh with no identifying
marks on it. This makes it easier to separate yourself from the
person this once was.”
To work with dead bodies, and to determine the reason for their
death, requires careful compartmentalization of thoughts on the
part of the forensic examiner. “It’s a chapter in a book,” Dr. Nichols
said. “You close the door on that chapter, and you don’t think about
it again until you’re asked about the case. You don’t want to open
those doors.”
One wall of Dr. Nichols’ office is taken up by a large book shelf,
full of medical text and humorously relevant material such as the
“Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.” His table is half-covered in
paperwork for court cases still to come. A large microscope sits near
the bookcase. Lovingly referred to as Mr. Microscope, it (along with
its predecessors) may be Dr. Nichols’ closest professional associate.
On the room’s opposite end is the desk and computer, complete
with many more stacks of papers as well as some clever and macabre
paraphernalia. Among them: a voodoo doll from New Orleans and
Thank you, pass, but what DID he do?
“He was a family physician in the west end of Louisville, almost
Shively. I’m the son of a doctor, the nephew of a doctor, divorced
from a doctor and married to a doctor. I went into pathology as a
punt. My father thought I was going to take over the family business
but, after working in his office, I knew without a doubt I didn’t want
to do that.”
Dr. Nichols started out as a history major before attending
medical school, “Which by the way, made the first year of medical
school a real tough struggle. There were people with master’s degrees
in the courses I was taking!” Still, he put his nose to the grindstone
and made it to residency, knowing for certain that he didn’t want
to be a “regular” doctor.
“My brain works very well with imaging tasks. So, what are my
options for something related to that? Radiology and pathology. At
the time, one had colors (pathology) and one didn’t (radiology). I
decided to be a pathologist, so I could work in color.”
Once he was in residency at Louisville General Hospital, Dr.
Nichols began to create his own lane. No one else in Kentucky was
intent on becoming a forensic pathologist. “There was no one around
here doing it. You couldn’t get a staff pathologist in the autopsy room
for a coroner’s case. It was just residents training residents, and you
can imagine how that is.”
Dr. Nichols points to a book on his office shelf titled “Medicolegal
Investigation of Death” by Spitz and Fisher. This was the North Star
in his development as a forensic pathologist.
“The first edition came out while I was a resident. A case would
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AUGUST 2019
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