Friday, November 30, 2007

Physician heard opportunity knocking in private forensic medical field By Daniel Connolly Contact February 8, 2007 One day Dr. Bruce Levy cut open a dead womans stomach and found it was full of pills.

That discovery and the events that followed led Levy to pursue a career in forensic medicine. Today, the old New Yorker is a businessman who remains active in finding out why people died. I think the opportunity to be able to study the human body is absolutely fascinating. He said.

Levy is Tennessees medical examiner and President and CEO of Forensic Medical, the private firm tha received a $2.5 million contract to administer the Shelby County Medical Examiners office.

The company is in an unusual position; its trying to earn a profit by conducting autopsies on people wh deaths came violently or mysteriously.

The Nashville-based firm is on track to make $200,000 in profit its first year with the county, despite ad staff and services, Levy said.

The firm, which also runs the regional medical examiners office in Davidson County, earned total profi $800,000 last year, he said.

The secret is to stay nimble and cut unnecessary costs, Levy said. For instance, the firm has negotiated l with Nashville-based Aegis Sciences Corp. in exchange for all of its toxicology tests business. Such neg are difficult in a government system because of rules on competitive bidding, he said.

Levy uses the language of business today, but hes trained as a doctor. His intrest in forensic investigatio from an episode in 1989 when he was a medical resident at the University of Massachusetts. A doctor as him to perform an autopsy on an elderly woman who died in her hospital bed. She had suffered from hea

disease, so her death seemed unsurprising.

But the turning point came when Levy discovered pills in her stomach. His hospital happened to share sp the Massachusetts medical examiner, and experienced staffers led him through the investigation.

It turned out that the woman had committed suicide, he said. She had hoarded and overdosed on her h medication.

Levy said the doctor that treated the woman was horrified that he had burdened the family with the know her suicide. The doctor told Levy that he would have flushed the pills down the sink and never mentione seeing them.

I just found that outrageous. Levy said. And I think it was probably then that I realized that this was s that was for me. That truth was very important.

The unfortunate souls that carry their mysteries to the autopsy table in Madison Avenue have died by un natural causes or by homicide, suicide, or accident.

I think Forensic Medical has been key in helping us recruit those people, said Chief Medical Examiner Chancellor.

Only 400 to 450 doctors around the nation specialize in conducting autopsies, Levy said, and some docto keen on joining a government entity, he said. The state-run University of Tennessee ran the office previo Levy argues that a private firm gives doctors more control over their work environment.

We are a very flexible group, which I think is also very attractive positions, who tend to be independen at times, particularly forensic pathologists, he said.

Levy said recruiting wasnt affected by the federal criminal case against Dr. O.C. Smith, the formal med examiner whose resignation helped lead Shelby County to give the contract to Forensic Medical.

Smith was accused of faking an assault himself, but in 2005 a jury deadlocked 9-3 in favor of acquitting prosecutors didnt retry the case.

Chancellor and Levy said the increased number of pathologists will help the office conduct more autops Currently, it does about 700 per year and does cursory external exams on some other cadavers because o time, Levy said.

Chancellor and Levy said they hope to expand outside of Shelby County to become a true regional foren medical center, to reestablish a residency training program in forensic medicine and to move to new offi Levy said seeing so much death helps him focus on the important things in life.

Enjoying what you are doing and having good friends and family, and living each day as it might be yo

he said. Because we know probably better than anybody that it can be.

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