Pat Dollard | Young Americans

FOX:

If Surgeon General is a Spokesman for Good Health, Gupta May Be Fit

Sanjay Gupta’s wide fan base lends support for his role as the next surgeon general, but debate continues over what the role of surgeon general should be.

He doesn’t just play a doctor on TV. Sanjay Gupta could soon be the nation’s chief doctor — on TV and off.

Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon, assistant professor of neurosurgery and chief medical analyst for CNN, is expected to become the nation’s next surgeon general.

The position would make him the uniformed head of the 6,000-member Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service — a job that carries the rank of vice admiral and dates back to 1871, when the surgeon general was the first supervising surgeon of the Marine Hospital Service.

“The reason he gets a spiffy uniform is to go on TV,” “FOX News Watch” contributor Jim Pinkerton said of the position. “Surgeon general is basically a PR job, and we presume [Gupta] will be pretty good at PR.”

Gupta hasn’t officially accepted the job, but he said in a Twitter dispatch released Tuesday afternoon that he’s definitely headed in that direction.

But not everyone thinks the U.S. needs a PR man to promote national health. CATO Institute senior fellow Michael Tanner said the role of the surgeon general is merely to be the “national nag.”

“My big objection to it is that we’re going to have some federal nanny telling us how to live our lives. The nanny state is personified by the surgeon general,” he said.

In the age of 24-hour news, many say they are not surprised that a fresh-faced and widely known TV correspondent would join Barack Obama’s administration.

The relationship between television and government has been growing in recent administrations. George Stephanopoulus, an adviser to President Bill Clinton, became a Sunday morning news host. And the late Tony Snow went from being a speech writer for President George H.W. Bush to hosting “FOX News Sunday” and a FOX News Radio talk show to serving as President George W. Bush’s press secretary.

“Most people in media are hams to begin with and [surgeon general is] a hammy job … This is not the job of covert operative; this is the job of going on TV to talk about why you need to get a flu shot,” Pinkerton said.

But Gupta, one of People magazine’s “sexiest men alive,” will be in a position of grave responsibility, said former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, now president of Canyon Ranch Institute and a distinguished professor of public health at the University of Arizona’s College of Public Health. Carmona, who was President Bush’s surgeon general from 2002 to 2006, said the position is one that the next president should consider carefully.

“When people are arguing about what does [a scientific claim] really mean … it is the surgeon general that has the gravitas, that has the presence, that has the intellectual capability to say, ‘Here is the definition of the issue, here’s the clarity of the issue,’” Carmona told FOXNews.com.

The Office of the Surgeon General’s Web site describes the post as “America’s chief health educator,” responsible for “providing Americans the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury.”

Carmona said the job is meant for someone with a “pretty robust Rolodex,” who has
given decades of service, writes policy papers, speaks out publicly, is a medical practitioner, is “well-known, respected and sought after by the peers as an owner of intellectual property.” He said it’s best for the candidate to have “a few gray hairs” and be someone with an “established track record.”

Carmona would not say specifically whether he thought Gupta, at 39, is qualified for the job, but he did say he has been approached by several candidates seeking the position

“There are many qualified physicians out there now who merit consideration for the position,” he said.

Carmona added that the position is at the meeting point of science and policy, and the surgeon general’s job is not to let politics get in the way of critical health matters. He gave the example of President Ronald Reagan’s surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, who “stepped up in the face of a lot of political opposition” to conducting research on AIDS and is now “heralded as the man who brought clarity to the issue” by making conservatives realize that the disease was an emerging infection that didn’t affect only gay men.

“The media characterizes us by some magnanimous event because it makes news, but every surgeon general is working every day on a variety of issues … it is the diligent work behind the scenes, below the radar, that advances the work of the nation,” he said.

Carmona said he has not discussed any particular potential nominee with members of President-elect Obama’s transition team, but he has talked to Obama aides about a number of other positions in the public health sector and several policy matters.

Tanner, of the CATO Institute, said “inevitably” the job comes back to political issues and “lines up on left-right political aisles.”

“Some surgeon generals do say some intelligent things, and yet C. Everett Koop was very polarizing and … it inevitably gets into values questions or questions that are not the realm” of federal government, Tanner said.

Tanner noted that Koop brought the position into the limelight when he “got the old Navy uniforms out of mothballs and went on TV, and everyone went ‘oooh.’”

But since the role of the surgeon general “is a media personality,” according to Tanner, “in terms of a media job, [Gupta] is probably pretty good. But I thought he was doing a good job on CNN.

“He showed up every day. I watched him every Saturday morning on CNN and he told me I should exercise,” Tanner said, adding, “How much I eat or exercise or who I have sex with, that’s just none of [the government's] business.”

Carmona, however, argued that it is the government’s business when the youth of America are obese. He said children have become “little time bombs” with higher incidences and earlier occurrences of diabetes, hardened arteries and other diseases associated with poor nutrition and lifestyle.

“Those particular diseases aren’t just a health problem but a national security problem, because where will our firemen and police officers and soldiers come from” if kids don’t grow up to be physically fit?

Pinkerton countered that he has great respect for the work of the Public Health Service, but the surgeon general is primarily a spokesman and not a deep policy contributor. For that, he said, Gupta will do fine.

“The issue of seat belts or smoking or obesity or exercise, you need somebody who will communicate,” he said. “You find your people where you can get ‘em. And if it’s over at CNN, so be it.”

Now, don’t be too quick to jump all over Dr. Gupta. He has atleast two big positives in my book:

#1: Gupta kicked Moore’s ass:

The Weekly Standard:

Sanjay Gupta, Obama’s Politically Incorrect Surgeon General

So, America’s most telegenic, Indian-American neurosurgeon/family man/anchorman will be America’s next surgeon general. None of C. Everett Koop’s stern demeanor and exceptional facial hair or Joycelyn Elders’ tendency toward the most awkward national public health conversations ever. Not for Obama.

It’s a smart political choice–one that puts an undeniably smart, young, minority figure in a place of prominence who reflects Obama’s own perceived vibrancy.

It’s also an encouraging choice when it comes to the politics of public health. In my experience, watching and reading Gupta, he’s a fair man who tells the truth about health issues, even when the truth runs counter to liberal public-health crusades. Such honesty in a health reporter is fairly remarkable, and is what makes Gupta worth watching.

He’s perhaps most famous for a dust-up with Michael Moore over his movie, “Sicko.” CNN initially aired a report by Gupta, which refuted many of the charges made about health care by Moore in “Sicko.” Moore accused Gupta and CNN of being in bed with pharmaceutical companies, because the imagination of this filmmaker only allows for a very small, predictable cast of villains. Gupta ended up correcting and apologizing for one incorrect figure in his reporting–he had misstated Moore’s figure on per-capita health spending in Cuba, saying $25 instead of $251. Gupta later faced off with Moore in a debate on “Larry King Live,” and CNN stood behind Gupta with a point-by-point rebuttal of Moore’s complaint.

Paul Krugman has taken to his NYT blog to swiftly condemn the Gupta pick, based on the doctor’s performance in this incident, saying the pick reflects “lack of accountability that always seems to be the rule when you get things wrong in a socially acceptable way.” (Me: The fact NYTimes’ Krugman has a problem with the Doc is a plus selling point to me.)

In fact, Gupta took responsibility for his mistake and offered Moore ample opportunity to refute him in a face-to-face discussion. Most of the bad press Gupta suffered over the incident stemmed not from his honest mistake, but from the Left’s displeasure over his attacking the idea of socialized medicine in a socially unacceptable way. Moore’s real-life theatrics, just like his celluloid ones, were meant to stifle debate, not encourage it. Gupta didn’t play along.

Though the most visible, it’s not the first time Gupta has spoken, err, inconvenient truths about health issues.

In a February column, he offered far more than the simplistic, blanket condemnation of steroids and tales or “‘roid rage” usually offered by health writers. Instead, he examined its real benefits and downsides, and legitimate uses outside of the sports world:

So it makes you wonder: If steroids are such a problem, why do athletes continue to take them? Why are they are a problem even among high school athletes? Why are some entertainers said to be using them?

It’s because, whatever you think, anabolic steroids work.

Barry Tyson uses steroids. But he’s someone you won’t see in the headlines. His usage is legit. Tyson takes steroids to help fight off infections from HIV.

How quickly did he notice a change? “I mean, did you, take this stuff at night and then in the morning say, ‘Wow, something’s already different’?” Gupta asked.

“Well, I mean, within a couple a days I noticed a change,” Tyson said. “I noticed a change in my energy level. I noticed a change in my appetite. I noticed a change in how much I could push at the gym.”

And how crucial were steroids in his recovery?

“It was very important especially because it’s putting on that muscle that helps fight infection,” Tyson said.

In his popular special series, “Chasing Life,” he treated with sensitivity the desires of older Americans to use drugs like Human Growth Hormone to improve their quality of life as their natural levels drop. Many health reporters would have opted for knee-jerk condemnation without examining the pros and cons of such controversial self-medication.

In the absolutist world of smoking commentary, Gupta is a breath of fresh air, so to speak. In a 2005 column about smoking and lung cancer, he made a medically accurate but rarely uttered assessment about smokers’s risk of lung cancer: “But, if you quit at the age of 30, it’s almost a negligible increased risk.”

I’m sure there are things in the Gupta catalog with which I don’t agree, but he’s always struck me as a pleasantly unpredictable and unpolitical reporter. Here’s hoping for more of the same at surgeon general.

#2: He’s officially a “Combat Doc” … albeit by happenstance or Divine Intervention:

CNN:

Gupta: Saving lives on the front lines

by Sanjay Gupta

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — I remember the day well. It was in April of 2003. A 23-year-old Marine, Jesus Vidana, suddenly fell to the ground, his helmet and head bloodied by a sniper’s bullet.

He was twice pronounced dead in the field — once immediately at the scene and then again on a follow-up examination. But, deep inside his chest, his heart was still faintly beating — so weakly that he didn’t even have a pulse.

No one knew it at the time, but Vidana was about to benefit from one of the greatest medical advances in medical and military history.

Jesus was brought to a forward resuscitative surgical suite or FRSS. It is a tent in the desert, but it is the most sophisticated tent you have ever seen. It can be broken down and set up in one hour, yet it contains sterile instruments, anesthesia machines, an operating table, lab analysis equipment, an ultrasound machine, gowns, drapes and a ventilator.

All of it travels just behind the front-line troops. There are surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and hard-working health care workers. Collectively, they are known as “Devil Docs,” and I had the privilege of being embedded with them in the spring of 2003.

The idea for this emergency medical suite belonged to Dr. H.R. Bohman. He is a bullish, gruff career military surgeon who has boundless energy and expects the same from his colleagues. While standing in the blowing desert sand of northern Kuwait, he outlined his vision for me.

“In previous wars, it took too long to get the critically injured to medical care,” he told me. “It’s called the ‘golden hour’ and it is the window of time to treat trauma.”

If you wait longer than that, death rates start to soar. “The best way to improve the odds? Take a gamble and place some of the most precious commodities of a war, such as doctors and medical equipment, right behind the front lines.”

That way, as soon as someone is wounded, he or she gets medical care. Remarkably, sometimes the wait is just minutes before doctors are evaluating and treating the wounded.

For Bohman, Vidana and countless military personnel, the gamble paid off. Compared to the Vietnam War, where most American deaths occurred before the wounded ever made it to a hospital, the number of deaths during Operation Iraqi Freedom dropped dramatically. In short, care was being given more quickly and it was making a difference.

Jesus Vidana was still alive, but dying, in the middle of an FRSS just outside Baghdad when a team of heroic doctors and nurses descended on him. Quickly, a breathing tube was placed in him, and he was given back some of the precious blood that was now soaking the sand where he had been shot.

As a neurosurgeon, I was asked to step back from my journalist’s role to look at his gunshot wound to the head. Shortly thereafter, I was removing a bullet from his brain. Within an hour, Jesus had been treated, operated on and was recovering just outside the operating room.

In all the years I have worked in hospitals, I have never seen resources mobilized so quickly and health care workers move with such purpose. And, remember, it was a tent in the middle of the desert by the dark of night in the most dangerous place on Earth.

I wouldn’t be telling you this story if Jesus hadn’t survived and done well.

He is a handsome young man who is considering a career in physical therapy and still trying to reconcile his brush with death. I visited him last year in Southern California and his mother slowly walked over to me and took my hands and said simply, “Thank you.”

I still remember looking over at my producer Stephanie Smith and watching her begin to cry, which of course made me cry as well. This story, though, is more than a story about one Marine who lived, when so many thought he would die. It is about the remarkable technology and brilliant thinking that has brought the wounded of this war to doctors and nurses faster than ever before. This is a story about brave men and women who risk their lives every day so they might save others.

CNN:

CNN’s Gupta joins Iraq surgery
Medical correspondent pitches in on efforts to save Iraqi boy

SOUTH CENTRAL IRAQ (CNN) — CNN Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta, a trained neurosurgeon, performed emergency brain surgery at a U.S. field hospital in south central Iraq in an attempt to save the life of a wounded Iraqi boy. (CONTINUE)

Me: Hell … who knows? The Good Doc might even know a hell of a lot more to be CIA head than Panetta …