Say Hello to Your New ME

During a special voting session July 5 – called, as Travis Co. Judge Sam Biscoe put it, to handle two "sort of emergency items," – county commissioners voted unanimously to hire Dr. David Dolinak as the county's third-ever medical examiner. Dolinak, 38, will take over the helm in mid-August, relieving veteran ME Roberto Bayardo, who has been with the county since 1977 and who handed in notice of his retirement this spring. Commissioners agreed to pay Dolinak $250,000 per year, and authorized $7,500 in moving expenses for him to relocate to Austin from Cleveland, where he's been working as a pathologist in the Cuyahoga Co. Coroner's Office. Dolinak also served as a deputy chief ME in Dallas Co. from 2001-2004, where he was also an assistant professor of pathology at the UT Southwest Medical School.

Dolinak will take over during a particularly rough time for the Travis Co. Medical Examiner's Office. Indeed, until the county is able to hire more doctors, Dolinak will be its only full-time ME, since the only other pathologists, Drs. Elizabeth Peacock and Suzanna Dana, both resigned (although Dana is doing some part-time contract work for the office). The lack of staff has led to increasing workloads, far in excess of the maximum required by the National Association of Medical Examiners – by whom the county hopes eventually to have the office accredited – and, some say, to an increased number of mistakes, such as the misidentification in 2004 of the remains of an 85-year-old woman as those of a 23-year-old man. (For more, see "CSI: Travis County," June 30.)