County Still Without Medical Examiner As It Considers Options
El Paso County remains without a Chief Medical Examiner as Commissioner’s Court continues to ponder its options more than a week after voting to fire Dr. Paul Shrode.
In the meantime, commissioners met Wednesday afternoon at the courthouse to discuss what to do about the medical examiner vacancy. And while they did authorize the office’s business manager, Irene Santiago, to take care of the business side of things, they stopped short of naming an interim medical examiner.
Commissioners discussed the matter in executive session. The leading candidate for the interim position is Dr. Juan Contin, who has been performing autopsies and testifying when needed on a contract basis for the county over the past 10 years.
Dr. Contin has agreed to fill in until a new medical examiner can be found. But the question now is whether the county wants him to serve in that role or go another route.
“I think there’s a lot of members of Commissioner’s Court that have some concerns,” El Paso County Commissioner Dan Haggerty said.
Like Shrode, Contin has his own baggage. According to published reports, he was censured by the state board of medical examiners in 1991, charged with nepotism in 1996 and fired by the county as Chief Medical Examiner in 2000.
Commissioners we spoke with today said they have been told they can go with any medical doctor as an interim. They also said they’d onsider paying a new Chief Medical Examiner more than the $254,000 a year Shrode was making in order to fill the position more quickly.
“It’s going to be probably a long and involved process,” Haggerty added. “It’s going to be very expensive.”
Commissioner Willie Gandara, Jr., said he’d be willing to up the pay for the right person.
“We may end up having to pay a little bit more,” Gandara said. “It’s just like with all jobs and in all types of work, you get what you pay for.”
Shrode’s ending salary was $254,000 dollars a year. Starting pay for the position is currently $236,000 per year.
Haggerty said the county’s human resources director has indicated they already have “some” applicants, more than two anyway, for the permanent medical examiner position.
