Obamawatch: CNN star for surgeon general? - January 06, 2009
Howard Kurtz, the media critic at the Washington Post and the host of the CNN weekend show Reliable Sources (thus making him a most reliable source of his own, of course), is reporting that Barack Obama has offered the post of surgeon general to Sanjay Gupta, who has reportedly accepted. 
Gupta is a neurosurgeon best known for his 'House Call' segment on CNN. He's the expert the network turns to when it needs to explain the latest surgery on the president's knee or what a torn rotator cuff means for a star basketball player. He would be perhaps the most prominent person of scientific or medical background to join Obama's cabinet, eclipsing even Nobel prizewinner Steven Chu -- who, while undoubtedly smarter, is not immediately recognizable to millions of American television viewers.
The post of surgeon general is an odd one. The surgeon general heads the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, a uniformed service, and generally serves as the most public face on public health issues. How powerful the position is depends heavily on who occupies it. The post has been empty since mid-2006, when Richard Carmona quit. The year after, he testified in front of Congress about what he called political interference in decisions at the agency, involving hot-button issues on embryonic stem cells and sex education among others. Such issues are not confined to Republican administrations; during the Clinton years, surgeon general Joycelyn Elders lost her job after calling masturbation a natural part of human sexuality that should perhaps be taught in schools. Under Reagan, C. Everett Koop drew fire for his attempts to educate the American public about AIDS/HIV.
CNN is reporting that Gupta would have more involvement in developing health policy than prior surgeon generals. This would be a departure from past tradition -- in which the surgeon general has to sell the president's already-established health ideas to the public -- but one for which Gupta is likely prepared: He served as a health policy fellow in the Clinton White House.
Image: CNN
Comments
It's official: the world is upside down.
Posted by: Pennies | January 7, 2009 08:11 AM
This is a joke... right?
Posted by: Obama Mama | January 7, 2009 05:55 PM