El Paso medical examiner allegedly lied on resume

Reports KCBD out of Lubbock:

There's more trouble for the former Deputy Medical Examiner of Lubbock County.

Paul Shrode was already under scrutiny amid allegations that he lied on his resume while working in Lubbock in order to get the job as Chief Medical Examiner in El Paso County.

Late last week, NewsChannel 11 obtained documents that indicate that the Texas Medical Board will investigate. A document analyst from Austin who often works for defense attorneys in criminal cases, David Fisher, filed the complaint against Shrode with the medical board.

There have already been questions raised about the science behind autopsies and whether practitioners use sloppy methods. Now we learn that the Chief Medical Examiner in a large Texas county allegedly falsified his credentials. Yikes!

There's a full chapter on autopsies and medical examiners in the National Research Council's report last year on Strengthening Forensic Science which stressed the chronic shortage of qualified forensic pathologists, the lack of (or failure to use) best practices for death investigations, inadequate quality controls, and a lack of university-level research supporting existing techniques. Among the forensic disciplines, this isn't one I've ever focused on much, but clearly Texas has problems in this area, too.

RELATED:

• Add autopsies to the list of frequently shoddy forensics
• Autopsy caseloads rise thanks to shortage of forensic pathologists