The search may be over for a Western Kentucky Medical Examiner, ending the numerous miles coroners have been driving since the Madisonville office had been closed.

Last year, the Madisonville office lost its medical examiner and it seemed as if the state was not going to find a replacement. This wasn’t good news for those coroners who would now have to travel to the closest examiner’s office in Louisville. For some counties in the far west, it was quite a trip, but that is exactly what they have been doing now for months, including Logan County’s coroner Mary Givens.

The extended trip costs the counties more in fuel and time.

With some lobbying by the Coroners Association, funeral directors and others in the local governments, the state reconsidered the closure, but were having a hard time finding someone to take the job. Apparently the state was finding it difficult to find someone to take the job, considering it pays well below the national average for that position said Tracey S. Corey, Chief Medical Examiner for the state of Kentucky.

They had a bite a few months ago from a man in Pennsylvania, but before he even began, he quit.

On Sept. 13, the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office announced that it will fill the vacant examiner’s position in Madisonville, effective Jan. 1, 2013.

Dr. Corey said she was pleased that Dr. Greg Wanger, currently with the Northern Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office, has agreed to accept the medical examiner’s position in Madisonville.

“I’m so pleased to fill this critical position in Western Kentucky, particularly with the caliber of someone like Dr. Wanger, who has tremendous experiences and devotion to the death investigation system,” said Dr. Corey.

A native of Cincinnati, Dr. Wanger has 28 years of experience in determining the cause and manner of death of those who die an unattended, suspicious or violent death. For the past five and a half years he has served as a state medical examiner for the northern Kentucky region, and practiced forensic pathology in Alabama as a state medical examiner and in Virginia as an assistant chief medical examiner prior to his Kentucky experience.

He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Kentucky, his medical degree from Ohio State University, and completed his residency in pathology at Ohio State University and his forensic pathology fellowship at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia.

In addition, Dr. Wanger is board certified in anatomic, clinical and forensic pathology, and is the only forensic pathologist in the country to have graduated from the FBI’s National Academy.

Dr. Corey will immediately begin actively recruiting for a forensic pathologist to join Dr. Charles Stephens in the Northern Kentucky Medical Examiner’s Office, to fill Dr. Wanger’s position.