Book of South African - Book of Women - Mail & Guardian

ence domestic violence or rape fail to follow
through with their cases or never finalise their
interim protection orders. The unit submits its
findings to Parliament, advises on further training
of police and court workers and provides
educational material for complainants working
their way through a labyrinthine legal system.
In 2009 Martin was elected head of the
department of clinical laboratory sciences at
UCT, representing the departments of forensic
and anatomical pathology, chemical pathology,
virology, medical microbiology, medical
biochemistry, genetics, haematology and
immunology.
“Lorna works 24 hours a day,” says Omar
Galant, who has been a member of staff in the
forensics department for 16 years and remembers
Martin as a junior registrar. “She doesn’t
try to take short cuts and she always has a plan
about what she’s going to do next. With her it’s
always ‘when’ and never ‘if’.”
Martin’s next project is to close down the
old Salt River Mortuary and open a new forensics
laboratory in conjunction with the state
and university, which will have in-house toxicology
and DNA, odontology (forensic dental
studies), entymology (beetles, flies and maggots),
a bone lab, an imaging suite and a body
farm, where research will be conducted to
determine the time elapsed since death. This
will be a first for Africa.
As professor and head of department,
Martin teaches medical students, trains
registrars, conducts research, works as an
administrator and flies around the world to act
as an expert witness in rape homicide cases.
It is a source of pride for South Africans to
know that we are the world experts in certain
fields of medicine, and a source of shame that
one of those fields is the pathology of rape,
particularly child and infant rape.
How does anybody do such grisly work and
stay sane?
“All pathologists have to be a little crazy,”
says Martin, who has organised the schedules
of her registrars and specialists to include at
least one day a week away from the morgue to
attend to other duties. Staff in the department
are also encouraged to take all holidays due to
them and trauma counsellors are available.
Artz, who has been a close personal friend
of Martin’s for over a decade, has a further
explanation for Martin’s ability to cope.
“Lorna is incredibly good at compartmentalising.
She’s seen terrible things a thousand
times over and yet she’s never allowed herself
to become bitter or cynical. She’s still so
enthusiastic about her work. Some people are
born to be forensic pathologists. Lorna is one
of them.”
Medical professionals joke that physicians
know everything and see nothing, surgeons
see everything and know nothing, and that
althrough pathologists see and know everything,
it is too late. This is not strictly true for
forensic pathologists, however, because, even
after death, there is still an opportunity to see
justice served.
“When I visit a crime scene, instead of getting
upset, I get determined,” says Martin. “I
want to see somebody brought to account.”
As Martin pointed out in an inaugural lecture
last year, forensic pathologists are in the privileged
position of giving a voice to the dead.
After the lecture, the audience was ushered
to another of Martin’s projects. Using funds
obtained from a grant, she has spearheaded
the drive to curate and digitalise more than
3 000 specimens in the Anatomical Pathology
Learning Centre. This museum, available online,
is also a first for Africa and a valuable learning
resource for students around the world, particularly
those from poorer countries.
Friends, colleagues and her family celebrated
her achievements in the atmosphere in which
she feels most at home: they sipped cocktails
and nibbled snacks amid glass jars of enlarged
spleens, nodular livers, cystic kidneys and
fibrotic lungs. — Martinique Stilwell
Martinique Stilwell is a medical doctor,
writer and freelance journalist. Her memoir,
Thinking Up a Hurricane, will be published
by Penguin in September
Book of South AfrICAn women 2012 39