KATHMANDU, Jan 7: President-elect Barrack Obama´s transition team has approached Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN health reporter, to become the next surgeon general, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Dr Gupta is a leading contender for the job, the paper said. [break]
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His appointment is expected to give the moribund office a higher profile but one that has received a mixed reaction among public health advocates.
Dr. Gupta, who confirmed on Twitter that he had been approached by the Obama team, discussed the job with the president-elect late last year in Chicago. He did not return an e-mail seeking comment.
According to people at CNN and in the Obama transition team, Dr. Gupta is likely to make a decision about taking the job within a few days. News of his selection was first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post.
Dr. Gupta presides over a mini-media empire that, in addition to his regular work on CNN, includes appearances on the “CBS Evening News” and columns in Time magazine. His first book, about the search for immortality, was published last year. He is paid for speaking engagements, a controversial practice for a journalist. The All American Talent & Celebrity Network lists his speaking fees as ranging from $30,001 to $50,000.
If he takes the job Dr. Gupta would be accepting an ailing patient. The status and authority of the surgeon general, the titular head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, has been on the wane for decades. It experienced a brief revival under C Everett Koop, whose principled stand against cigarette smoking gave the office national credibility and new life as a popular public health adviser.
Successive surgeons general, with small staffs and low profiles, have sought to capitalize on Dr. Koop’s success, with mixed results.
In place of the surgeon general, the Bush administration has used the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and officials from the National Institute of Health — who have large budgets and considerable scientific expertise and staffs — as the government’s main public-health advocates.
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