Apparently, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, of CNN fame, has been approached about becoming the next surgeon general. Gupta, besides having a medical and journalistic resume that puts everybody else to shame, is a pretty cool customer, having performed surgery on wounded servicemen while embedded with a naval medical unit in Iraq in 2003. Jay Newton-Small notes that picking a television personality, at first glance, seems a bit silly (not that Gupta, a professor of neurosurgery at Emory University and a former White House fellow, doesn't have the credentials). But the more I think about it, the more I think this is kind of a good idea. The surgeon general "serves as America's chief health educator by providing Americans the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury," according to the official website. Someone who has made a career of synthesizing complex medical knowledge into television specials seems to be the right person to educate Americans about their health. Managing the 6,000 federal public health officials may be a bit more of a challenge, however, but other surgeon generals -- such as the famed C. Everett Koop -- have come from private practices or academic positions with lighter management duties and been considered successful in the job.
One funny note: the surgeon general ranks as a Vice Admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, a service that has semi-military discipline and uniforms, which means that Dr. Gupta may have one more interesting title in the future.
-- Tim Fernholz
