Funeral Director / Embalmer

• Manage preparations and plans in a funeral home.
• Arrange for burial or funeral services for the deceased.
• Hire and train embalmers, funeral attendants, and other employees in the funeral home.
• Handle accounts and collections.
• Comfort grieving family members.
• Discuss financing options.
• Discuss prices and plans.
• Help family set date and time for viewing and burial.
• Arrange for clergy member to conduct religious services.
• Choose pallbearers and arrange to have them at the funeral, if the family has not already chosen their own pallbearers.
• Contact cemetery officials and arrange burial plans.
• Ensure burial plot is dug up and ready for casket.
• Ensure religious and ethnic customs of the decedent are fulfilled or respected.
• Order casket and vault or urn, if the deceased is going to be cremated.
• Prepare body for burial with embalming fluid or prepare body to be cremated, if cremation.
• Arrange casket in viewing parlor or set up urn with ashes for viewing.
• Set up photos or other memories of the decedent.
• Greet family as they enter the parlor.
• Arrange for transportation to and from the cemetery.
• Lead funeral procession.
• Ensure cars have identifying flags or markings during funeral procession.
• Oversee preparation and shipment of body if burial is in another location.
• Direct funeral service and perform removals as necessary
• Disinfects and cleanses body.
• Empties body of blood.
• Injects body with chemicals for preservation purposes.
• Prepare dead bodies for burial.
• Remove body place where person died.
• Take body to funeral home.
• Fill out paperwork.
• Log personal items.
• Write down any bruising, discoloration, or cuts that are manifest on the body.
• Document procedures and chemicals to be used.
• Remove clothing, bandages, and anything else upon the body.
• Use disinfectant to cleanse skin and face.
• Massage muscles if rigor mortis has set in to loosen them.
• Shave male and female faces with razor.
• Place limbs in ideal position for viewing.
• Glue eyelids together or place cotton balls behind eyelids to prevent dehydration.
• Tie jaw together with piece of suture string.
• Place mouth former in mouth to shape it.
• Glue lips in place.
• Squeeze caulk inside mouth to give it a fuller shape.
• Mix embalming fluid and prepare for injection.
• Inject embalming fluid into artery.
• Drain blood from a nearby vein simultaneously.
• Inject chemicals into other areas of the body.
• Ensure blood is drained into sewer system.
• Remove arterial and jugular tubes and tie vessels shut.
• Suction fluids out of internal organs with trocar.
• Inject cavity fluid into torso.
• Wash body and hair to remove chemicals.
• Apply makeup to face and hands and trim nails.
• Style hair and place clothes on decedent.