The Washington Post - 20.02.2020

thursday, february 20 , 2020. the washington post eZ re B5

obituaries

roof in May.

The auditors’ report lists two

vacancies, though the state

health department reports there

are three and a half. The report

counted the per diem employees,

though they typically don’t han-

dle complex cases or testify in

court. And even with their efforts,

the office still exceeds the nation-

al standards.

To make matters worse, the

report says cases could continue

to increase even though overdos-

es appear to be leveling off. It

cites concerns about the affect of

“persistently high homicide

rates” on workloads. There were

more than 300 homicides in Bal-

timore in 2019, the fifth year in a

row, while homicides in Balti-

more County nearly doubled to

50 last year.

Accreditation is not necessary

for the agency, but the standards

are meant to maintain and assure

quality and confidence in the

findings. The Maryland Medical

Examiner’s Office has held the

accreditation for three decades.

Loss of accreditation can un-

dermine families’ faith in the

explanation about a loved one’s

cause of death. It also could

undermine public health offi-

cials’ confidence in data used to

set policy and direct resources,

such as what kinds of deadly

street drugs are circulating.

Prosecutors who rely on exam-

iners’ findings and testimony to

bolster their cases have already

faced pushback in court. Fowler

said caseloads had been raised to

challenge medical examiners’

credibility in other states, though

not yet in a Maryland case.

In addition to drug and homi-

cide deaths, the agency investi-

gates deaths caused by injury,

suicide and those that are suspi-

cious or not attended by a physi-

cian. Examiners and others in the

office also look at thousands of

cases for which no autopsy is

needed.

— Baltimore Sun

BY MEREDITH COHN

BALTIMORE — The Maryland
Medical Examiner’s Office is
scrambling to fill persistent and
new vacancies that are threaten-
ing its ability to handle a crushing
load of cases stemming from the
long-running opioid epidemic
and a stubbornly high pace of
homicides in Baltimore.
Compounding the problem,
the state’s well-regarded, long-
time chief medical examiner left
the office at t he end of 2019, citing
the challenges the office faces in
coping with the overdose crisis.
An assistant is serving as acting
chief examiner while a search is
underway.
The workload of the office,
which is located in Baltimore, has
exceeded national quality stan-
dards for years and could get
worse given recent departures.
And the office is again at risk of
losing its accreditation.
With the retirement of the
chief examiner and the departure
of several assistants, the office
has 16 examiners and needs to
hire four more. It hasn’t had so
few examiners in five years.
“It’s a crisis,” said state Del.
Maggie McIntosh (D-Baltimore
City), chair of the Maryland
House Appropriations Commit-
tee. “The bottom line is that we
have several agencies or units
within agencies that are stressed
because of staffing shortages, and
this is one.”
“It’s going to take this adminis-
tration and the legislature to sit
down and figure out how to
resolve it,” s he said.
The examiner’s office is part of
the Maryland Department of
Health, which says it has in-
creased salaries to recruit and
retain examiners, though its pay
still lags behind competing agen-
cies. After a Baltimore Sun report
in 2017 about the workload,
health officials added three posi-
tions. New examiners were hired
eventually, but departures in the

office have outpaced new arriv-

als.

McIntosh said solving the

problem may involve better re-

cruitment and retention meth-

ods, additions to a training pro-

gram that has been a source of

new hires, and higher salaries.

“The positions are hard to fill and

very specialized,” s he said.

The agency, o fficially called the

Office of the Chief Medical Exam-

iner, investigates about a third of

all deaths in Maryland.

Data collected by state audi-

tors and obtained by the Sun

show the examiners performed

5,787 autopsies in 2019. That’s a

50 percent increase from 2012,

the last year examiners averaged

fewer than 250 autopsies each,

which is the standard limit set by

the National Association of Medi-

cal Examiners.

Last year’s average was 283,

according to the audit conducted

by the General Assembly’s De-

partment of Legislative Services.

That was down from 334 in 2018,

but the office has lost several

examiners.

If the number of needed autop-

sies remains the same and the

office doesn’t hire new staff, the

16 remaining examiners could

have to perform as many as 362

autopsies each this year.

State officials said they have

brought in some “per diem” work-

ers to assist in less-complex cases

and reduce the burden.

The shortages of examiners is

being felt nationally. The Ameri-

can Association of Medical Col-

leges reports that the number of

active pathologists has been on

the decline for years, dropping

14 percent from 2010 to 2017 to

12,839.

S ally S. Aiken, president of the

National Association of Medical

Examiners, said that has led to a

“critical shortage” of examiners.

She cited National Institute of

Justice data that show the coun-

try has 400 to 500 who practice

full time while the need exceeds

1,200.

“The reasons for the shortage

of forensic pathologists are nu-

merous, but what is clear is that

this professional pipeline is

small, and the shortage will be-

come worse in the foreseeable

future,” Aiken said. “This has

resulted in a sort of bidding war

between offices to hire qualified

forensic pathologists.”

There are dozens of jobs posted

on the association’s website, in-

cluding one for the post of chief

medical examiner in Maryland.

Pay is not listed on the job post-

ing, but Maryland’s recently re-

tired chief, David Fowler, earned

an annual salary of $289,000.

“Recruitment and interviews

are underway and have yielded

promising prospects,” said Mau-

reen Regan, a state health depart-

ment spokeswoman.

Fowler told the Sun in Novem-

ber that a factor in his decision to

retire was a lack of resources to

handle the state’s opioid epidem-

ic, which still produces four fatal

overdoses a day. He could not be

reached for comment.

During a November meeting of

the Post M ortem Examiners Com-

mission, which oversees the

Maryland Medical Examiner’s O f-

fice, Fowler said some newer

examiners performed fewer au-

topsies. That meant others per-

formed more, a few more than

450, which he said “is so far from

the typical workload at a forensic

medical center that it is an obsta-

cle to recruiting medical examin-

ers.”

He said the office’s budget

grew to $14.5 million from

$11 million in 2014 but has not

kept pace since. Based on nation-

al averages for funding, its budget

should be about $22 million.

Maryland pays assistant medi-

cal examiners a minimum salary

of about $150,000, the lowest of

10 medical examiner offices

polled by state auditors for their

report. The maximum salary for

assistants of $249,000 was mid-

pack. But even that top salary was

below other pathology jobs in

Baltimore.

The report says the office is at

risk of losing its accreditation in

May from the National Associa-

tion of Medical Examiners be-

cause of the staffing shortage as

well as a leaky roof in the agency’s

nine-year-old headquarters in

the University of Maryland’s

BioPark in West Baltimore. State

officials plan to begin fixing the

MaRYlaNd

Too many autopsies, not enough medical examiners amid opioid epidemic

Baltimore sun

The Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office, located in Baltimore, faces a staffing shortage that puts its

accreditation at risk. The workload of the office has exceeded national quality standards for years.

“This professional

pipeline is small, and

the shortage will

become worse.”

Sally S. aiken, head of the national

association of medical examiners

Ms. Caldwell was married to

Whitehead, who produced and

directed several of her plays, for

34 years until his death in 2002.

Survivors include two sons and

two grandsons.

Ms. Caldwell acted in a few

films, including Woody Allen’s

“The Purple Rose of Cairo” ( 1985),

“Birth” (2004), opposite Nicole

Kidman and Lauren Bacall, and

“Extremely Loud & Incredibly

Close” (2011), starring To m

Hanks, but she much preferred

the immersion of acting in the

theater.

When she took on the role of

Lillian Hellman in William Luce’s

1986 one-woman play about the

dramatist, Ms. Caldwell even took

up smoking again, to inhabit her

character more fully.

“The business of acting is shar-

ing an experience,” she once told

the Boston Globe. “Television and

movies tend to cut off the element

of sharing. Images flicker across

the screen. Everything is mechan-

ical. Everything is dead. Actors on

the stage are alive. The audience

is alive.”

[email protected]

BY MATT SCHUDEL

Zoe Caldwell, one of the most
acclaimed stage performers of
her generation, who won four
To ny Awards for playing complex
female characters ranging from
Medea in classical Greek tragedy
to the powerful yet vulnerable
Maria Callas in “Master Class,”
died Feb. 16 at h er home in Pound
Ridge, N.Y. She was 86.
She had complications from
Parkinson’s disease, said her son
Charlie Whitehead.
Ms. Caldwell, whose first name
was pronounced with one sylla-
ble, “Zoh,” was born in Australia
and was acting professionally at
age 9. She was a veteran classical
performer — appearing in works
by William Shakespeare, George
Bernard Shaw and Anton Chek-
hov — before making her Broad-
way debut in 1965 as a disturbed
nun in John Whiting’s “The Dev-
ils.”
A year later, Ms. Caldwell was
cast in Te nnessee Williams’s
“Slapstick Tragedy,” which ran for
less than a week. Still, her perfor-
mance as a Southern society col-
umnist earned her the To ny
Award for best supporting ac-
tress.
In 1968, she appeared in the
title role of “The Prime of Miss
Jean Brodie,” portraying a charis-
matic but domineering teacher at
a Scottish girls’ school in the
1930 s. At first, the play’s produc-
er, Robert Whitehead, did not
think the diminutive Ms.
Caldwell was right for the role,
but he was persuaded by Jay Pres-
son Allen, who had adapted the
play from Muriel Spark’s novel.
“I like her so much,” Ms.
Caldwell said at the time, “that
every night I strip down stark
naked and start becoming Brodie
from scratch — I pull at my hair
here, twist it a bit there, get the
feel of her shoes. I couldn’t play
any part I didn’t like.”
Her performance inspired rap-
turous reviews.
“What she is up to is extraordi-
nary,” New York Times theater
critic Walter Kerr wrote. “Miss
Caldwell is not precisely acting a
character; she is inventing, in
clear amber light, a mobile night-
mare — intense, wildly propor-
tioned, antic and slippery, chill-
ing.”
Ms. Caldwell received the To ny
Award for best actress in a play,
and she and Whitehead were
married during the play’s almost

year-long Broadway run.

Over the next few years, Ms.

Caldwell appeared in an off-

Broadway play about the life of

French writer Colette and turned

to directing, including several

plays by Shakespeare and a 197 7

Broadway comedy, “A n Almost

Perfect Person,” starring Colleen

Dewhurst as a congressional can-

didate.

She continued to act periodi-

cally and, after several failed

plays, triumphed again on Broad-

way in “Medea,” b y classical Greek

dramatist Euripides and directed

by her husband. Playing the

vengeful, amoral Medea, Ms.

Caldwell imbued the character

with a raw sexuality that seemed

almost shocking.

“People talk about the things I

do with my body,” she told the

Times. “We studied so many

Greek paintings and sculptures,

and that’s how it evolved.”

She won a third To ny A ward for

the role.

Early in her career, Ms.

Caldwell had met Te rrence Mc-

Nally, a young dramatist who

promised to write a play for her.

That play turned out to be “Mas-

ter Class,” McNally’s depiction of

the opera star Callas teaching at

the Juilliard School after her

voice has deserted her.

Ms. Caldwell learned every-

thing she could about Callas and

mastered her lilting Greek-Italian

accent. She found an aching vul-

nerability at t he heart of the char-

acter. “She lets you in on her soul,”

she said of Callas, “and her soul is

molded by art.”

Ms. Caldwell even interviewed

one of Callas’s former students to

prepare for the role: “She said,

‘A nd then, of course, there was the

way she strode.’ I said, ‘Strode?

Show me! Stride!’ ”

In the play, Ms. Caldwell, as

Callas, cajoles, criticizes and con-

fides in her students.

“You expect people to remem-

ber you if you don’t have a look?”

she asks. “You. Yes, you, and don’t

take this personally. You don’t

have a look. You look very nice,

I’m sure you are... but you don’t

have a look. Get o ne. As q uickly as

possible.”

In one scene with a character

played by Audra McDonald, Ms.

Caldwell exhorts her protegee to

greater musical heights, telling

her, “This isn’t just an opera. This

is your life.”

“Master Class” premiered on

Broadway in 1995 and won To nys

for best play, best supporting ac-

tress (McDonald) and best ac-

tress, for Ms. Caldwell.

Associated Press theater critic

Michael Kuchwara called her “an

incandescent actress giving the

performance of her career...

‘Master Class’ tops them all.”

Zoe Ada Caldwell was born

Sept. 14, 1933, in Melbourne. Her

father was a plumber, her mother

a singer and dancer who encour-

aged her daughter’s theatrical in-

terests.

“When I was a little girl in

Australia, my parents took me to

everything in the theater,” she

told the Los Angeles Times. “We

didn’t have any money, so we’d

have to go in what they called the

Gods, the balcony.”

She often appeared on the ra-

dio in her early years, including

an interview show with celebri-

ties when she was 12. She took

classic roles at a y oung age and by

her early 20 s was in London,

appearing in Shakespearean

plays alongside such performers

as Paul Robeson, Charles Laugh-

ton, Laurence Olivier and Dame

Edith Evans.

In 1959, she was in a produc-

tion of “Coriolanus” with Albert

Finney; in her 200 1 memoir, “I

Will Be Cleopatra,” Ms. Caldwell

admitted that she was named as a

co-respondent in Finney’s first

divorce.

zoe caldwell, 86

Broadway actress who played Medea, C allas won 4 Tonys

associated press

ron Frehm/associated press

Left: Zoe Caldwell in a dress rehearsal for “Othello” with Albert Finney at the Shakespeare Memorial

Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in 19 59. Above: Caldwell receives the Tony Award for best

actress in 1996 for her role as o pera legend Maria Callas in “Master Class.” In another Tony-winning

performance, “Medea” on Broadway, she imbued the character with a shockingly raw sexuality.

“Miss Caldwell is not

precisely acting a

character; she is

inventing, in clear

amber light, a mobile

nightmare.”

Theater critic walter Kerr, writing

of Zoe caldwell in the new York times