Even before CNN's chief medical correspondent and practicing neurosurgeon Dr Sanjay Gupta has had a chance to take President-elect Barack Obama up on his offer for him to be the nation's Surgeon-General and the first Indian American to hold such a high-profile post, a leading US lawmaker has written to his Democratic colleagues urging them to join him in opposing Gupta's nomination saying he doesn't have the gravitas nor the credibility for such a post.
Congressman John Conyers of Michigan -- Gupta's home state where he was born and raised and went to medical school -- in his letter urged his fellow Democrats to join him in 'signing a letter to President-elect Barack Obama that Dr Sanjay Gupta not be nominated for the post', arguing that the celebrity physician and medical correspondent 'lacks the requisite experience needed to oversee the federal agency that provides crucial health care assistance.'
Conyers, the African American chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, besides noting that Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman has 'very, very serious concerns with having Gupta as the nation's Surgeon General' also wrote to his colleagues that 'there are highly-experienced medical professionals who question whether Dr Gupta has the necessary experience or even the medical background to be in charge of some 6,000 physicians or more who work in the US Public Health Services Association.'