Posted on 01/06/2009 11:52:26 AM PST by BGHater
President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general to Sanjay Gupta, the neurosurgeon and correspondent for CNN and CBS, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.
Gupta has told administration officials that he wants the job, and the final vetting process is under way. He has asked for a few days to figure out the financial and logistical details of moving his family from Atlanta to Washington but is expected to accept the offer.
When reached for comment today, Gupta did not deny the account but declined to comment.
The offer followed a two-hour Chicago meeting in November with Obama, who said that Gupta could be the highest-profile surgeon general in history and would have an expanded role in providing health policy advice, the sources said. Gupta later spoke with Tom Daschle, Obama's White House health czar and nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, and other advisers to the president-elect.
The Michigan-born son of Indian and Pakistani parents, Gupta has always been drawn to health policy. He was a White House fellow in the late 1990s, writing speeches and crafting policy for Hillary Clinton. His appointment would give the administration a prominent official of Southwest Asian descent and a skilled television spokesman.
Gupta, who hosts "House Call" on CNN, has discussed the job offer with his bosses at CBS and CNN to make sure he could be released from his contractual obligations, the sources said.
His role as journalist and physician have sometimes overlapped. During the 2003 Iraq invasion, Gupta was embedded with a Navy unit called Devil Docs and, while covering its mission, performed brain surgery five times, the first of which was on a 2-year-old Iraqi boy.
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...
My medical qualifications are that I head up a medical office and I can actually look up the studies this idiot talks about and read them for myself as well as any pharmaceutical drugs he is always pushing. You do not have to have an MD to apply logic and common sense....
“He is an accomplished, recognized neurosurgeon.”
Wonderful.
“Choose your battles with BO - this is not the one to fight.”
Judging from the disunified reaction on this thread, clearly not.
“It is a great pick.”
No.
Well I'm sure I cannot convince you otherwise since you have met the man. That was probably very exciting for you. Meeting someone is not the sole manner in which I decide if I like a person or not, although I do admit that it is thrilling to meet a well known person.
I was less than thrilled with his eagerness to place a $2 per pack tax on cigarettes. I understand the thinking of those who think this is a great tax, but even as a nonsmoker I am against a cigarette tax. I also think his concern over tobacco seemed inconsistent with the clean bill of health he gave rBGH milk, saying it was no different even though the IGF1 hormones are associated increased risks of diabetes and cancer. He came to this conclusion after Monsanto paid him big bucks.
Finally, I hated his beard. He seemed like a goofball just based on the beard alone.
Another physician who think gun violence is a disease and banning firearms the cure. YUCK.
Please....don’t ever try to operate on any living person because you work in a medical office. My wife is a certified medical coder (she can actually understand what the doctors are doing in order to code it to the insurance company) and I would’nt even let her dispense medical advice to me.
Well clearly you approve of him. However expertise in neurosurgery, however wonderful, does not mean that he is good at the big picture. He will come out for universal health care - you watch.
Wow - If that isn’t an effective ad for sober living, nothing is. She’s a 1,000 miles of bad and bumpy road.
I thought this was a joke, But I see it is not. Yee-gads! Who is second in line? Dr. Phil?
The irony of your post being directly above a photo of clowns really makes your point. Sanjay Gupta is certainly not a clown. Nor is Robert Gates, or even Leon Panetta for that matter. Obama won the election and gets to select those who serve in his administration. We are the clowns if we kick and scream at every juncture.
Undoubtedly he will come out for universal healthcare.
Why is it that there are so many on this thread that think that Obama was ever going to appoint someone that was AGAINST universal healthcare????? I’d love an answer.
He’s the best Obama would have picked. No Koop, no Joselyn Elder.
Maybe you can answer the question all your friends refuse to: Who would you have preferred as SG who had a reasonable chance of being appointed by this administration?
“He is more qualified to be surgeon General by education, experience and personality than any man or woman alive in United States.”
Somehow I think that’s debatable.
Sorry, had to inject a little humor. :)
And Obama’s wasn’t? The fact that both his mother and father died in their fifties, and that Obama is a smoker.
It was a politically motivated piece.
Good doctors do not go around assisting CNN in smearing people for political reasons.
I agree that it's clearly debatable. I'm not bashing Gupta. He is, without question, a superb medical doctor.
Personally, I would like to have seen a pick that had some experience as a health care administrator - someone who understands the cost drivers in the US health care system. Too many doctors are poor, poor managers of people, systems and most importantly money.
I have seen nothing in Gupta's background that leads me to believe he understands the problems from a management perspective.
And you are correct on that. I saw that poece and thought the same thing. Elections have consequences. President Zero has the right to chose a liberal for any appointment.
My main point is, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is eminently qualified based on education, world wide experience and PERSONALITY to be appointed Surgeon General.
“Why is it that there are so many on this thread that think that Obama was ever going to appoint someone that was AGAINST universal healthcare????? I’d love an answer.”
Yes, and that is why no such pick will be acceptable to me. Get it? There’s your answer.
“Maybe you can answer the question all your friends refuse to”
They are your FRiends as well as mine. This is FR afterall.
“Who would you have preferred as SG who had a reasonable chance of being appointed by this administration?”
Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld.
“who had a reasonable chance of being appointed by this administration”
A qualified SG is a qualified SG. Obama should appoint on that basis not on the basis of some litmus test.
Of course it is debatable. Every thing is debatable. But to inject some reality, Obama being a flaming liberal did you really expect him to appoint a PRO-LIFE, flaming conservative? Now if he appointed a CNN journalist with NO MEDICAL QUALIFICATIONS, then I would be disgusted.
“My main point is, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is eminently qualified based on education, world wide experience and PERSONALITY to be appointed Surgeon General.”
Then he fits right in with the Obama administration. Personality must be the only reason anyone is there.
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