LOCAL Houston | The City Guide APRIL 2015 | Page 45

Local April.qxp_002houston 3/23/15 2:15 PM Page 45

THE CUTTING EDGE
DR. STEPHEN PUSTILNIK isn’t your typical forensic pathologist. By day, the

Philadelphia native consults, performs autopsies and occasionally testifies in court, but once the workday is over and the white lab coat comes
off, this doctor turns to his other passion: designing and making knives.
He started out to be a vascular surgeon. But one day, during his residency at Hartford Hospital, Pustilnik attended a lecture given by the Chief
Medical Examiner for the state of Connecticut. “Everyone else was snoring, and I was wide awake,” he recalls. And that was that. He switched
specialties and never looked back. As his career progressed – from
Dade County in Florida to Alabama to Galveston (where he became
Chief Medical Examiner in 2003), and finally to private practice in
Houston – Pustilnik became increasingly frustrated with the poor quality
of the tools at his disposal. “I’ve always told people that the only things
a good forensic pathologist needs are a sharp knife and a good camera,” he says. “You want the human tissue you’re cutting through – and
whatever you’re finding in it – to be suitable for publication, and you
don’t want it to look like you just cut through it with a circular saw. So I
was always searching for a good sharpener when I should have been
looking for a good-quality knife.” An avid gourmet cook, Pustilnik had an
enviable collection of