Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner
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The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner is the medical examiner's office of the government of the County of Los Angeles, California. It is located at the Boyle Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles.
The office was created in its present form on December 17, 1920, by an ordinance approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, although it has existed in some form since the appointment of the first county coroner in 1850.[1] The office was previously known as the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner and the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner.
List of chief medical examiners
The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner recognized the following individuals as its leaders in the agency's history.[2][1]
| No. | Name | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles County Coroner (1850–1957) | |||
| 1 | Alpheus P. Hodges, M.D. | 1850 | 1851 |
| 2 | Rafael (Ralph) C. Guirado | 1852 | |
| 3 | Joseph Stillman Mallard | 1853 | |
| 4 | Thomas A. Mayes | 1854 | 1855 |
| 5 | Q. A. Sneed | 1856 | |
| 6 | James Brown Winston, M.D. | 1857 | |
| 7 | A. Cook | 1858 | |
| 8 | Henry A. Miles | 1859 | |
| 9 | H. P. Swain | 1860 | 1861 |
| 10 | J. S. Griffin, M.D. | 1862 | 1865 |
| 11 | J. L. Smith | 1866 | 1867 |
| 12 | Vincent Gelcich, M.D. | 1868 | 1869 |
| 13 | Joseph Kurtz, M.D. | 1870 | 1873 |
| 14 | N. P. Richardson | 1874 | 1875 |
| 15 | Joseph Kurtz, M.D. | 1876 | 1877 |
| 16 | J. Hannon | 1878 | 1879 |
| 17 | Louis Hubert Nadeau, M.D. | 1879 | 1884 |
| 18 | Andrew McFarland, M.D. | 1885 | 1886 |
| 19 | J. M. Meredith | 1887 | 1890 |
| 20 | William Amasa Weldon, M.D. | 1891 | 1893 |
| 21 | Horace Getchell Cates, M.D. | 1893 | 1895 |
| 22 | George Walter Campbell, M.D. | 1895 | 1899 |
| 23 | L. T. Holland, M.D. | 1899 | 1902 |
| 24 | John Henry Trout, M.D. | 1902 | 1907 |
| 25 | Roy Stanley Lanterman, M.D. | 1907 | 1908 |
| 26 | Calvin Hartwell | 1908 | 1920 |
| 27 | F. T. Williams | 1920 | 1921 |
| 28 | Frank Albert Nance | 1921 | 1945 |
| 29 | Ben Harlan Brown | 1945 | 1953 |
| 30 | E. A. Winstanley | 1953 | 1957 |
| Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner | |||
| 1 | Theodore Joslyn Curphey, M.D. | 1957 | 1966 |
| 2 | Thomas T. Noguchi, M.D. | 1966 | 1983 |
| 3 | Ronald Kornblum, M.D. | 1983 | 1990 |
| acting | J. Lawrence Cogan, M.D. | 1990 | 1992 |
| 4 | Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, M.D. | 1992 | 2013 |
| 5 | Mark A. Fajardo, M.D. | 2013 | 2016 |
| acting | Christopher Rogers, M.D. | 2017 | |
| 6 | Jonathan R. Lucas, M.D. | 2017 | 2022 |
| interim | Odey C. Ukpo, M.D., M.S. | 2022 | 2023 |
| 7 | 2023 | present | |
Former administrative roles
| Director (office abolished) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ilona Lewis | 1990 | 1993 |
| 2 | Anthony T. Hernandez | 1993 | 2012 |
| interim | Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, M.D. | 2012 | 2013 |
Recent chief medical examiners
Mark A. Fajardo
On July 9, 2010, the Board of Supervisors approved the appointment of Mark A. Fajardo, the Chief Forensic Pathologist at Riverside County, as the Medical Examiner-Coroner, at an annual salary of $275,000.[3] He formally replaced Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, who served 2 years as the Coroner, in August 2013.[4]
Mark Fajardo resigned in March 2016. A news report indicated that "he left because it became common to have up to 50 bodies waiting to be processed and the backlog of bodies was 'nuts'. ... and toxicology tests were taking six months to complete" due to inadequate staffing.[5] Fajardo's predecessor, Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, was re-appointed on an interim basis on April 11, 2016.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
Jonathan R. Lucas
Jonathan R. Lucas was appointed as the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner on July 10, 2017. Lucas announced his intent to leave DMEC in September 2022.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
Odey C. Ukpo
On November 4, 2022, Odey C. Ukpo, Medical Director of the Department, was sworn in as Interim Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner. Ukpo is the first African American to serve as Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner since the office was established in 1850. Ukpo joined the Department in 2014 and served as a Senior Deputy Medical Examiner before being named Medical Director in June 2022.[6][7] On March 7, 2023, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors appointed Odey C. Ukpo as Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner.[8]
See also
References
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External links
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