Three decades since he took the helm, Dallas County's chief medical examiner plans to retire.
Jeffrey Barnard has led the county's Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences since 1991.
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price was there when he was hired. Price was instrumental in the medical examiner's appointment as chief.
“What sets Dr. Barnard apart is that he is hands on and carries a case load equal to his medical examiner team. There is no substitute to leading by example,” Price said.
Dr. Barnard's last day is Nov. 1.
He has submitted to county commissioners successor recommendations.
His duties has included autopsies and forensics, but he also manages staff and budgets.
"If all I do were autopsies that would, frankly, with this many years experience, ...be the easy job," he said. "When you're doing autopsies and you're overseeing everybody and you're dealing with the budget and you're dealing with the crime lab and the problems that are inherent in there —Yeah. You're busy all the time."
The lab serves surrounding areas plus regions that don't have their own medical examiner.
"Sometimes I don't sleep because I wake up worrying about things..." he said. "I'll wake up or I can't go to sleep when you've got different problems that come up. ...You're ultimately responsible for everything. Even when you're not really responsible."
The institute, he said, has "maybe 160 employees."
"That's a lot," he said. "And so if something goes wrong, they call you, they don't call anybody else."
Dr. Barnard said his staff handled a peak of almost 4,800 autopsies two years ago.
But, he recalls only a couple work-related dreams vivid enough to wake him.
"I think maybe I've had like two dreams in my whole career that were kind of creepy because they had forensic connotations to them." he said. "And I woke up going, what was that about? I mean, you wake up and it's like some sort of a homicide, and I'm like, 'Why? Why did I dream that?'
His last planned autopsy is this Friday.
He plans to take time to clear his head, then travel with his wife.
“She put up with a lot. It’s time for her to do stuff she wants to do.”
Germany, Normandy and Italy top the destination wish list.
Then , maybe, states like Alabama.
"We can just wake up and decide to go somewhere. We can drive to where our family is from and we’ve never gotten to visit," he said. "That would help working on family ancestry stuff."
He said after several months, he'll consider working part time in labs and writing a few books.
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