Dr. David C. Pate M.D., J.D.
Retired President and CEO of St. Luke's Health System
I am writing to share my endorsement for Dotti Owens as our next Ada County Coroner.
With all that is going on in our politics today, it may be that the race for Coroner hasn’t even hit your radar. Let me explain why it should and why you should vote for Dotti as our next Coroner. It is more important than you realize.
If you are unfamiliar with the coroner’s job and responsibilities, you would not be alone. You may think that it is all about the dead and perhaps about solving crimes. But, in fact, the coroner’s job, when done well is about the living.
The coroner can be the first to alert our public health officials and the public about a new emerging threat, for example overdoses in our children from Kratom that is currently being sold over the counter in some gas stations and convenience stores that our state legislature has declined to address. The coroner may also be the first to detect a lethal meningitis outbreak in a public school or university, especially now at a time when fewer children are being vaccinated against preventable infections.
The coroner protects surviving children in a home where an infant has died unexpectedly by determining with great care whether that child died of natural causes, an accident or an intentional act of child abuse.
Even in natural disease cases, the family is often distressed by concerns as to whether there was something they could have done to have prevented the death. Sometimes, the natural disease had gone undiagnosed, and it is a great comfort to families to learn what caused their loved one’s death, especially when that death was not expected. Oftentimes, even when it was clear that there was nothing that family could have done, they will still want answers as to whether their loved one’s disease is one that places their children and grandchildren at risk.
Unfortunately, not all coroners pursue the answers to all these questions. They may not be the public’s advocate for adequate funding or they may avoid pursuing the cost of testing in order to cut their budgets. I have dealt with unexplained loss and grief. I have tried to comfort families who lost loved ones without adequate explanations.
Just last year, someone dear to me passed away unexpectedly. She had an unexpected and unexplained death. An autopsy was ordered and the family and I hoped we would have answers. To my shock and surprise, a complete autopsy was not performed even though the very limited examination had failed to identify the cause of death and the cause of the patient’s very unusual neurological condition. They stopped even though the job was not finished.
Being a physician myself, I told the family, don’t worry, I will contact the coroner’s office and we will get the tissue microscopic slides of the brain and I will get them to a neuropathologist for review. To my shock and surprise, although the patient’s brain was the only part of the limited examination of the body, no tissues samples of the brain had been taken for microscopic examination. I had never even considered that might be the case.
At that point, our only hope for answers as to what happened to the family member and whether any of her children or grandchildren might be at risk of developing whatever undiagnosed condition she had, was to now try to retrieve the brain and send it out of state to have it examined, all because shortcuts were taken, incomplete examinations were performed, and perhaps to cut costs. Now others would have to pick up the slack. Let me assure you that this is not something easy to do.
It shouldn’t be this way.
A great coroner, like Dotti was previously for eight years for Ada County, will work to apply for grant programs and to institute preventative programs so that we can actually save lives and prevent needless deaths. Cost savings by simply doing incomplete work are far outweighed when we can actually prevent deaths. She will make sure the job gets done according to the high standards of the profession; not cutting corners and simply failing to get the job done.
That is the difference between a coroner just getting by and a coroner who is protecting and serving the people of Ada County. We don’t need an administrator who is penny-wise and pound-foolish. We need a professional coroner who cares, who has standards, who is committed to running a tight ship, high professional values, avoiding waste, and avoiding deaths. We need Dotti Owens – a proven, professional coroner and public servant.
I pray that you will personally never know how important it is to have the right coroner in office. The only way we can be sure is to vote for Dotti Owens.
David C. Pate, M.D., J.D.