Author Lectures on Influence of U.S. Surgeon General’s Office

By Spencer Watson

Journalist and author Mike Stobbe, Dr.P.H., covered the rise and decline of the office of U.S. Surgeon General while speaking at the UAMS College of Public Health in celebration of National Public Health Week.

He was working on his doctorate, and the class had been discussing who the heroes of public health were. Answers included top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Trial lawyers winning big settlements against tobacco companies got a mention.

Even U2’s Bono got named. The surgeon general, however, did not.

“I grew up in the ‘80s with C. Everett Koop and then Joycelyn Elders, so I kept wondering why no one was saying the surgeon general,” Stobbe said in a lecture hosted by the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health in celebration of National Public Health Week.

The event was additionally sponsored by the Arkansas Department of Health, the Society of the History of Medicine and the Health Professions, the UAMS College of Medicine, and the UAMS Library.

The surgeon general’s absence in the discussion eventually fueled Stobbe’s dissertation and, after more than seven years of research, his book: Surgeon General’s Warning: How Politics Crippled the Nation’s Doctor, which explores the history of the office and ponders its future.

Former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, M.D., joined Stobbe in signing copies of his book, in which he praises the Arkansas native for taking stances while holding the office.

“Although the chief health educator of the United States, the surgeon general has no real significant money or manpower to work with, no real budget, and that’s a misconception a lot of people have,” said Stobbe. “But it didn’t used to be that way.”

Beginning with the 19th century desire to reform the nation’s earliest hospitals — marine hospitals that had been founded in the 18th century — and continuing to the present day, Stobbe’s talk covered the rise and fall of the office that serves as America’s chief health educator. Today, he said, the office is so beset by political concerns that its duties are fairly restricted.

“The public looks to the surgeon general to be very candid, and we don’t often see that anymore,” he said. “Yet, while the measure is subjective, the ones usually seen as the most successful are the ones who took on issues other health officers wouldn’t take on.”

To that end, Stobbe had high praise for Arkansas native Joycelyn Elders, M.D., who served as surgeon general from 1993-1994 and attended the lecture.

“She was among the furthest along on the spectrum of being an advocate,” Stobbe said. “The job of the surgeon general is to speak to the public, and she was amazing.

“When I was a young health reporter, Dr. Elders was in the spotlight and if she came to town, the city editor would assign you to go. You simply did not miss that.”