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  2. Can Gupta Manage?

Can Gupta Manage?

By mikethemadbiologist on January 7, 2009.

Along with many of my fellow ScienceBloglings, I have doubts about Sanjay Gupta. As far as I can tell, Gupta has no experience managing an organization whatsoever.

For me, this is a serious problem. The Surgeon General isn't just a spokesman, he is also the head of the Public Health Service, a rather large organization that actually does important stuff. Contrast Gupta to Panetta, who has actually been a manager of different types of organizations, and the difference is a mile wide.

I'll leave aside my personal view that most people who make a living blabbing to a TV camera are seriously fucked in the head*, but how is Gupta going to run a large organization without the experience?

I realize that many scientists hate managers, but, in my experience, a good manager can make things happen, while a bad one can crash an organization. In fact, I would argue that Julie Gerberding, a telegenic spokesman, is a horrible manager and has cratered morale (and thus retention) at CDC.

Can't we do better?

Tags
Democrats
public health

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It's not true that Dr. Gupta has "no experience managing and organization whatsoever." He isthe associate director of the neurosurgery service at Grady Memorial Hospital. I'll grant you it's not anywhere near sufficient experience to run a a 6,000-strong organization like the PHS, but it's not nothing.

"He isthe associate director of the neurosurgery service at Grady Memorial Hospital."

Not as bad as Sarah Palin claiming foreign policy experience because you can see Russia from Alaska....but still doesn't meet the credibility standard one would hope for in such an appointment

Something that I find even more troubling than his lack of management experience is his apparent ignorance and/or lack of honesty when it comes to drug policy. This essay that he wrote for Time in 2006 pretty much says it all:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1552034,00.html

Call me crazy, but I would prefer to have a Surgeon General who places science and the truth above phony political propaganda.

Joycelyn Elders, anyone?

I'll leave aside my personal view that most people who make a living blabbing to a TV camera are seriously fucked in the head*,