THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, December 5, 1994 TAG: 9412050025
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 187 lines
All his professional life, Dr. Faruk B. Presswalla has been solving mysteries for other people, mostly dead people - the mystery being how they got that way.
For 18 years, the routine has seldom varied: Study a corpse, then drive to the courthouse to testify against a murderer.
Lately, though, Presswalla has found himself in court for more personal reasons. In this case, he sits behind the plaintiff's table, without a lawyer, having sued his own department over overtime rules, forcing a confrontation with his own bosses.
Along with the court testimony and legal briefs comes a new mystery that Presswalla has yet to figure out - a mystery about how life is lived, not how it is ended.
The mystery is: How much longer will Faruk Presswalla, one of the most renowned medical examiners in Virginia, stay in office before he quits, retires or just gets fired?
One way or another, Presswalla figures the end of his long, controversial public career here is probably drawing near. Politics may demand it.
``Sure, I'd like to stay - if I could get a divorce from Richmond,'' Presswalla says. ``If such a thing were feasible, it would be much easier for me.''
Folks who know Presswalla say the native of Bombay, India, is not one to give up a fight if he sees a principle worth defending. And Presswalla believes he is in just such a fight now.
``He's never been fearful of taking a strong stand on anything,'' says Dr. Marcella F. Fierro, the state's new chief medical examiner, and Presswalla's boss since February. ``He's highly principled. He's never backed away from anything.''
This time, that could prove Presswalla's undoing.
In his cramped cinder-block office near Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Presswalla weighs the alternatives.
Early retirement is tempting. He will be 55 in a year and a half, with more than 30 years' experience. He could retire on a reduced pension, but that wouldn't be a problem, he says; he has saved plenty from his $109,000-a-year salary.
Or he could quit. That, too, has appeal. He could indulge the urge to take graduate history classes full-time. He could teach. He could perhaps find a chief medical examiner's job somewhere else.
Or he could be forced out. In politics, anything is possible, and Presswalla believes he has been insulted several times in the past year by new bureaucrats under Gov. George F. Allen.
Leaving is a real temptation.
``I am very serious about it,'' Presswalla says. ``I have to look at all my options. Obviously if I get a good position I would take it and leave. If I want to continue in this field, obviously I have to leave the state. . . .
``Yes, I am emotional about this. I don't care to be treated this way. It started when the new administration came in.''
The dispute began with a ``Dear Public Servant'' letter.
It came from the governor-elect, exactly one year ago. Allen demanded: Resign now, maybe I'll reappoint you later.
The letter was sent to Virginia's top 450 bureaucrats, including all eight state medical examiners. It did not accomplish its immediate goal. The medical examiners did not resign and none was replaced.
But the letter, with its impersonal tone and harsh demand, accomplished one unintended thing: It immediately set the coroners against the new Republican governor.
Faruk Presswalla led the medical examiners' revolt. He was acting state chief at the time.
``Our feeling was you couldn't find a less political, more technical field,'' Presswalla recalls. ``I took the position that we are apolitical officers. There is no reason we should give our resignations. And if they fire us, I will fight with you to the last.''
Presswalla won that battle - the governor-elect pulled the coroners' names off his hit list - but not without making an enemy.
It came at a bad time for Presswalla personally. A year earlier, he had agreed to fill in for the state chief medical examiner, who had suffered a stroke. Now he wanted the job permanently.
It was supposed to be a temporary thing; it turned into a 15-month obligation. Presswalla - one of two medical examiners in Norfolk - found himself commuting between Norfolk and Richmond, conducting autopsies in both cities while running the state system.
His colleagues give Presswalla high marks, including his handling of the confrontation with Allen.
``He did an excellent job,'' says Dr. David Oxley, Roanoke's chief coroner, ``and I think he should have been recognized for that.''
Instead, Presswalla says, he was snubbed.
It happened in February. Richmond was searching for a new state chief medical examiner, and Presswalla was one of five candidates.
When the announcement came, no one called Presswalla. Instead, he learned of the decision by reading the official announcement: The state had chosen Fierro, a 20-year veteran medical examiner from Richmond, a contemporary of his.
Presswalla says he has no beef with the selection, only in how it was handled. To this day, he says, no one has called to tell him the decision, or even to thank him for taking the job for 15 months.
``I didn't expect to be given a medal,'' Presswalla says, ``but I didn't expect to be kicked in the behind, either.''
Adding injury to insult, Presswalla took a $7,500 pay cut, losing the pay raise he had gotten when he took the acting chief's job. It made him furious.
``I don't need the money,'' Presswalla says. ``It's the principle. It's a slur on me when that happened.''
And then the dispute turned ugly.
What followed - a nasty exchange of memos between Presswalla and Fierro - is enshrined in a thin manila folder in Norfolk Circuit Court.
It is called Presswalla vs. State Health Commissioner.
It began when Fierro, in one of her first official acts, wrote a memo on overtime to all her deputy chiefs, including Presswalla. The memo prescribed when local offices should be open and when compensatory time could be taken.
Presswalla saw it as a disruption to his office and a challenge to his independence.
So on April 28, he fired off an angry memo to Fierro, defying her request that all offices stay open Saturdays: ``The Tidewater District Office will no longer continue to provide autopsy services on weekends. . . .
``Working six-day weeks is no fun, yet I/we have done it for all of these years with minimum ancillary support. As responsible professionals/managers, I/we do not appreciate being told how I/we should manage and account for our time.''
Fierro wrote back a conciliatory note: ``Work with me,'' she concluded. ``Let's have peace within the system.''
Presswalla wrote back the same day: ``As per my memorandum dated April 28, 1994, the Tidewater District Office will be closed for autopsies on weekends. This memorandum was sent to you for your information, not for your permission.
Fierro again pleaded for peace: ``I have thoughtfully reviewed your memo of yesterday, May 11, 1994. The tenor of it distresses me considering the years we have worked together as colleagues and friends. . . . I have no wish to push this to a confrontation. . . . Please work with me on this problem.''
Instead, Presswalla filed a formal grievance, challenging Fierro's policy. When the Health Department refused to hear his grievance, Presswalla sued in Circuit Court.
Recently, a judge ruled that Presswalla is right: The overtime policy is a matter for a state grievance panel. That panel is now being appointed.
Meanwhile, Presswalla stews. Both he and Fierro insist there are no personal hard feelings.
``I've been heartsick,'' Fierro says. ``He's been a friend and colleague for a long time. Nothing has changed on a personal basis. We have too long a history as colleagues and friends to disrupt that.''
Presswalla agrees, despite the angry tone of his memos.
``It gets testy, but that's just my style. I'm not a person who beats around the bush and minces words,'' Presswalla says. ``But it's not personal. We still talk to each other every day. If there's any resentment on my part, it's not against Dr. Fierro, it's against the Health Department administration.''
The whole affair has made Presswalla rethink his pledge to Fierro earlier this year to stay on in Norfolk.
Presswalla says he has no political allegiance - he is not a Democrat or Republican - but he fears the Allen administration is trying to force him out.
``Why would you otherwise treat somebody like that? Maybe they were trying to fire me, but they know they can't fire me,'' Presswalla says. ``I found the behavior of this administration a little bizarre in relation to me.''
It is not the first time Presswalla has threatened to quit, despite his long tenure. In 1989, he resigned to protest a lack of staff pay raises. The issue was resolved a month later, and Presswalla withdrew his resignation before it took effect.
This time, as last time, colleagues hope Presswalla stays on.
``He has an excellent professional reputation,'' says Dr. James Beyer, chief medical examiner for Northern Virginia. ``His work is first-class.''
``Faruk's a good man and we'd hate to lose him,'' adds Oxley, the Roanoke coroner. ``It would be a real loss to the system.''
Fierro says she understands what Presswalla is going through. She left the profession two years ago for a less-stressful university job, then returned to become chief.
It's a tough job being medical examiner, she says. The death and violence get to you.
``There are times in your life, personally and professionally, that you negotiate who you are and what you are,'' Fierro says. ``You get tired. You need a change of scenery. You need to do something that's a mental stretch.
``Faruk would certainly make a competent chief wherever he would go. . . . If you're asking me do I want him to leave, no. But if he does decide to leave, he goes with my blessings.'' MEMO: Related story on page A6.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Joseph John Kotlowski, staff
Dr. Faruk Presswalla
ASSOCIATED PRESS photo
Dr. Marcella F. Fierro - chief medical examiner, and boss and friend
of Dr. Faruk Presswalla - says: ``. . . do I want him to leave, no.
But if he does decide to leave, he goes with my blessings.''
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA STATE EMPLOYEE POLITICAL APPOINTMENT by CNB