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The Tennessean Public Autopsies in Private Hands The privatization of Metro's medical examiner program appears to be a success, two years after the city contracted with a medical group to run the office. Prosecutors and police say they're getting reliable autopsy reports quickly,
and local funeral directors have quit complaining about delays of several
days in bodies being returned for funeral services. Dr. Bruce Levy, the Metro medical examiner said he and the two other pathologists on his staff perform autopsies "365 days a year." We try to do them the same day or the next day and we vary between 14 and 16 days on average to have a case finished." Some Metro officials grumbled early in 1997 when Mayor Phil Bredesen proposed paying Forensic Medical, a subsidiary of Brentwood-based Associated Pathologists, $2.2 million a year -- roughly double what the city had been budgeted for the medical examiner's office -- to take over the program. But Forensic Medical has run about 16% under budget for the first two years of its five-year contract with Metro and meanwhile has won accreditation for the local program from the National Association of Medical Examiners. (The company is paid a $200,000 yearly management fee in addition to its operating expenses.) And Levy, who is both Metro medical examiner and president of Forensic Medical, is preparing to move into a new Middle Tennessee post mortem facility, which the state Health Department plans to build north of downtown, early in 2001. Metro will lease space in that building, which is projected to cost $5 million, but part of the building will be used as a "back up system for any county in the state that needs autopsy services," said Health Department spokeswoman Diane Denton. Metro Councilman Charles French questioned Bredesen's privatization plan in 1997, but he said recently that, "from everything I can tell, Dr. Levy and his staff are doing an excellent job." "I realize it's expensive but we were in a bind," French said. "We had trouble recruiting properly certified pathologists because the office was in disarray." French said he doesn't favor turning large chunks of local government over to private companies, but the medical examiner's office, with 19 employees is small enough and specialized enough to benefit from private management. Forensic Medical kept just five of the old Metro employees when it took control in 1997. Bredesen said he is "pleased with the direction the medical examiner's office has taken since Bruce Levy came on board." "I don't think anyone can argue with the fact that he has elevated the level of professionalism in the office over the last two years," the mayor said. Levy and a new management team took over the medical examiner's office in July 1997, following four years of confusion and political discord. Five physicians had held the title of medical examiner since, 1993, and the city wound up paying an Indiana pathologist, Dr. Miles Jones, to fly into town to perform autopsies, as needed, for almost a year. Some grieving families complained that they had to postpone funerals because of delays in getting autopsies performed, and Davidson County prosecutors put off some murder trials due to missing autopsy reports. "It's like night and day," District Attorney Torry Johnson said of the contrast between the mid-1990s and the current operation of the medical examiner's office. "It has become, from our standpoint, an extremely well run, highly professional and efficient operation." Relying on an out-of-town pathologist to perform autopsies and then return to Nashville to testify about them in court was "an absolute nightmare," Johnson said. "We never had to abandon a case, but, we devoted a lot of time to trying to get those reports out of him (Jones.)" The prosecutor said Dr. Charles Harlan, who became Metro's first full-time medical examiner in 1998, "represented a quantum leap" in the quality of local forensic examinations. But, Johnson said, Harlan's office "was in somewhat of a state of disarray a lot of the time." Maj. Pat Griffin, who heads the Metro Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division, said Marian "is an excellent doctor," but "his record-keeping may have been a little slow." During the period between Harlan and Levy, Griffin said "It seemed like no one could get to singing off the same page." "The system we have set up now appears to be working smoothly." Harlan resigned as medical examiner in 1993 after Bredesen called him on the carpet to explain "multiple findings of substantial operational and management problems." A jury ruled, in Harlan's favor earlier this year, after three of his female employees accused him of sexually harassing them while he was medical examiner. Harlan was followed by three short-term medical examiners before the city contracted with Jones to perform autopsies as needed. Dr. Stephanie Bailey, the Metro health director, held the title of medical examiner during the Jones period. The pathologists who headed the medical examiner's office in 1993-1996 complained of inadequate funding and political interference in personnel decisions. Levy said recently that he is on good terms with Harlan, who set up a private pathology lab in east Nashville after leaving Metro. "We've met several times," Levy said. "We talk about issues of mutual interst to us." Harlan, who performs autopsies for 60 Tennessee counties at his private lab, said he and Levy have had "multiple conversations." But as to how Levy and his staff are running the medical examiner's office, Harlan said he had "nothing to say." |
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