Kevorkian graduated in 1952 from the University of Michigan medical school, specializing in pathology.

In 1970, he became the chief pathologist at Saratoga General Hospital in Detroit.

Early in his medical career, he showed a recurrent interest in the subject of death:

In 1956, he published a journal article, "The Fundus Oculi and the Determination of Death", about his attempt to photograph the eyes of patients at the moment of death--a paper that first won him the nickame "Doctor Death". A paper he presented in December 1958 that advocated consensual experiments on convicts during executions led the University of Michigan to ask him to terminate his residency. A 1961 article in The American Journal of Clinical Pathology described his efforts to transfuse blood from dead bodies into living patients.