I had to read this one myself to make sure I wasn't reading it wrong. But yes, Sanjay Gupta of CNN (also serving as a practicing neurosurgeon and professor of medicine at Emory University), may get the job of Surgeon General under Sen. Obama when the latter takes office as President in less than two weeks.
The Office of the US Surgeon General, who is the titular head of the US Public Health Service and hold the rank of a three star admiral, is one of those positions that's very hard to define; usually, it has been the Surgeons-General that have done that. The Office was created by Ulysses Grant in the 1870s but it doesn't really have a direct impact on public policy although it does have the force of persuasion.
The most famous examples are Luther Terry who warned in 1964 about the link between tobacco and cardio-respiratory problems and which led to the first warning labels on tobacco packages and in advertising two years later; and C. Everett Koop in the 1980s who confounded paleoconservatives in actively promoting the ABC agenda to fight AIDS and Hepatitis-C (abstinence first, being monogamous, contraceptives).
Then of course, there are the duds like Jocelyn Elders who suggested decriminalization of drugs ought to be pursued and that masturbation should be taught in schools as a way to reduce VDs. While she was right on both counts, she proved to be too hot to handle even for Slick Willy Clinton and he promptly fired her.
What kind of mark could Dr. Gupta leave on the office? That's up to him of course but I think he could be a powerful advocate. He certainly is the kind of doctor most people would want -- obviously they can't even hope to afford him the way things are now.
However, he famously confronted Michael Moore on CNN and questioned the overall accuracy of Moore's documentary, Sicko. It turned out Moore had the facts on his side even if he did downplay the negatives of the public health care systems in Canada, the UK, France and Cuba -- and even Gupta was forced to concede to Moore he'd rather want to make medical decisions for his patients himself rather than rely on a call centre 1000 miles away to get "approval." Not that I totally agreed with Moore about the film either -- but Gupta didn't come out looking good on that one.
That beef aside, Obama needs a "devil's advocate" or advocates rather than just relying on a choir of the converted as Dubya has done over the last fourteen years of his executive political career, and Gupta is an entirely appropriate countervoice going forward.
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