Medical Examiner Assistant

Location: Augusta, ME,None,None

Medical Examiner Assistant 
Office of Chief Medical Examiner

Opening Date:  March 25, 2025  
Closing Date:  April 8, 2025   
Job Class Code:  4309
Grade:  23
Salary:  $49,275.20 - $69,139.20/year
Position #006000151
Bargaining Unit:  Professional and Technical

The Office of Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) is looking to fill a full-time Medical Examiner Assistant (MEA) position in our Augusta, Maine office. 

The OCME is a relatively small agency within Maine government (12 full-time people) and is administratively placed within the Department of the Attorney General.  The OCME is unique with its varied and complex mission that is concerned with all aspects of death and dying. The daily functions of the administrative personnel are to process the details surrounding the deaths of individuals by collecting histories, scene photos, suicide notes and many personal effects, frequently under less-than-ideal circumstances. The technical staff who process the bodies and assist in the autopsy procedures document in great detail the findings that either caused or led up to the death. All employees of OCME must be able to function under conditions that are often psychologically oppressive. The post-mortem states of the bodies often may be offensive to one's physical and emotional senses.

The training period is long, usually on the order of many months. There is much cross-coverage by our personnel when staffing issues and work-load variations create such a demand.  All OCME personnel must be able to effectively interact with personnel from medical facilities, law enforcement and investigatory agencies, prosecutorial and defense attorneys, forensic laboratories, funeral homes, and (most importantly) grieving families.

The MEA position plays a key role in OCME’s statutory mandate to investigate cases of people who die in Maine from criminal violence, by accident, by suicide, suddenly when in apparent good health, when unattended by a physician, in a correctional facility or in any suspicious or unusual manner.  Along with the medicolegal responsibility to determine cause and manner of death, OCME serves a critical public health role by identifying injury trends or potential infectious diseases that may pose risk to the people of Maine.

This is professional and technical services work in assisting the Chief Medical Examiner (CME) or their designee in performing autopsies, laboratory work, and administrative projects. May assist in field exams or exercises or other relevant duties the CME might designate. Responsibilities include preparing the bodies before and after autopsy; assisting with autopsy procedures; field and laboratory research, investigation, and analysis; collecting evidence; performing basic toxicological tests; recording, storing, transporting, and shipping biological specimens; testifying in court; and delivering educational lectures. Work may entail participating in a component of a research project related to laboratory methodologies and techniques.  Oversight of others performing laboratory or field investigation activities may be exercised.  Work is performed under limited supervision. 

The typical work week is Monday through Friday from 7:30am to 4:30pm. The OCME is a 24/7 facility, and weekend and holiday on-call coverage is mandatory and will be pre-scheduled and split between the MEA staff; standby and overtime compensation are contractually provided.  

REPRESENTATIVE TASKS:  (A position may not be assigned all the duties listed, nor does this list include all the duties that may be assigned).
 
•    Prepares body for autopsy, forensic photographs, x-rays, draws external samples, removes and records property and evidence, removes and examines organs, and collects fingerprints of remains; and procures and transports specimens to comply with medical examiner instructions and meet legal and recording requirements. Ensures proper identification of remains. Closes and cleans body and uses appropriate packaging before release to funeral home or family.
•    Prepares written and photographic documentation of evidence and/or property.  Controls and releases evidence/property to include contacting family if property needs to be shipped. If non evidentiary, cleaning hard property of biohazard before release. Safe dealing with dangerous evidence/property (i.e. firearms, sharps, unknown substances) 
•    Manages morgue inventory and storage physically and electronically.
•    Assist with the external examination of the body, identifies and documents normal variations or abnormalities, and correlates with historical information, internal examination, and lab results to document findings according to appropriate protocol.
•    Assists with anthropology cases to include collecting bones and fragments from debris, processing, defleshing, x-ray