The races for political offices have begun to heat up in DeKalb County, and in the campaign for county coroner, a question of qualifications has been raised.

Incumbent coroner and Democrat Dennis Miller, in an interview Wednesday, questioned the qualifications of his opponent and stressed that his five years of service as deputy coroner and five years as coroner have proven his ability to run the office effectively.

“My opponent is running on her coattails,” Miller said. “She has no qualifications to serve as coroner.”

Miller’s opponent, Republican Fay Allen, rebutted the qualification question by emphasizing her years of service at Kishwaukee Community Hospital and the old DeKalb Public Hospital as a registered nurse.

“I have been on many of the same crime and accident scenes that Mr. Miller has been on, and I have worked very closely with law enforcement officials and medical officials,” Allen said.

“I feel that a coroner should be a medical professional. You are dealing with something very medical when you deal with a cause of death,” she said.

Allen has worked as a registered nurse since graduating from Presbyterian St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing in 1967, where she earned her degree in nursing. She is a certified emergency nurse, has worked with trauma patients, mobile intensive care units and has worked in the emergency room at Kishwaukee Hospital for 12 years.

Allen intends to keep her nursing position at the hospital if elected because she said it will enable her to continue being educated on medical innovations. “Medicine is a field that is always growing, and in order to keep abreast with new ideas that will benefit the office of coroner, I feel it is vital to keep my position there.”

However, Miller said he believes that occupying the office of coroner and concurrently working at a hospital is a conflict of interest. Coroners often have to investigate deaths at hospitals when a person does not live through surgery. An investigation will answer whether or not the hospital or a member of the surgical team had erred.

“As coroner, I am responsible to investigate the death at the hospital, while the deceased is still on the operating table,” Miller said. He continued by saying an unbiased investigation would be difficult for someone who works with the people involved.

Allen countered the remark by stating she would run the coroner’s office as a professional, and she is not a “Kishwaukee Hospital person” when it comes to being a professional. “I am a medical professional going in to do a good job,” she said.

Miller said his experience and training under “the best there are” will carry him to re-election in the upcoming vote.