President George W. Bush has nominated Dr. James W. Holsinger, Jr., 68, currently president of the United Methodist Judicial Council, to become the nation's 18th surgeon general.
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As word of the nomination spread, media outlets began raising questions about Holsinger's qualifications and past performance, along with questions of continued cronyism on the part of President Bush, as with his previous nominations of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court and Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.
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A Kansas City, KS, native, Holsinger has a Ph.D. in anatomy and a medical degree from Duke University, along with a master's degree in hospital management from the University of South Carolina. He also has a master's degree in biblical studies from multidenominational Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY.
Although trained in general surgery and cardiology, and described in President Bush's announcement as a cardiologist, Holsinger has no national board certification in any speciality, according to the web site of the American Board of Medical Specialities.
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Holsinger has been a consistent contributor to the Republican Party, according to Newsmeat.com. The web site lists close to $17,000 in contributions to the national party and to various candidates, including President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, both fellow United Methodists, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
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In The United Methodist Church, Holsinger rose to national prominence through his membership on the 1989-92 churchwide Committee to Study Homosexuality. He resigned from the committee shortly before the 1992 General Conference in Louisville, KY, because he said the committee's report was "skewed toward liberal interpretations" of homosexual orientation and behavior. At the time, Holsinger declined the committee's invitation to be included in a minority report on the subject.
Since that time, Holsinger has consistently supported forces in the denomination opposed to the acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. He has served previously on the board of the Indianapolis-based Confessing Movement within The United Methodist Church, a 15-year-old unofficial organization dedicated to "preserving the apostolic faith", according to a statement on its web site. Current Confessing Movement board members include Asbury Seminary chancellor Dr. Maxie Dunnam and layman David W. Stanley, also a director of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.
Holsinger was elected to the Judicial Council at the 2000 General Conference in Cleveland, OH. He was nominated from the floor along with Judicial Council members Mary A. Daffin, an attorney from Houston, TX, and Rev. Keith D. Boyette of Spotsylvania, VA, in one of the most successful political campaigns launched by the combined forces of the Confessing Movement and the Good News caucus.
During Holsinger's term on the Judicial Council, the church's "supreme court" has ruled consistently against acceptance of homosexual people. In 2005, the council upheld the defrocking of Rev. Beth Stroud, a lesbian, affirming the church's prohibition against ordaining GLBT people. Also that year, the Judicial Council set off a wave of debate in the church by siding with a Virginia pastor who refused membership to an openly gay man in Decision 1032. Several annual conferences this year have adopted resolutions challenging the views expressed in Decision 1032.
Holsinger currently serves in two other faith-based capacities, as treasurer of the World Methodist Council based in Lake Junaluska, NC, and as chairman of the Good Samaritan Foundation in Kentucky.
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According to a 1991 New York Times report, congressional investigator Mary Ann Curran testified before a House subcommittee that she found shoddy care at veterans hospitals, including several cases during 1989 and 1990 in which incompetence and neglect led to the deaths of patients. Curran visited six hospitals and studied the records of another 30 facilities in her investigation.
At the time, Holsinger testified to the House Government Operations Subcommittee on Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations that the VA was "obviously not perfect", but said that he had begun management changes intended to improve quality. At a briefing prior to the hearing, Holsinger denied that there were systemic problems in the Veterans Affairs' medical system.
However, three months later, the government ruled that the unit Holsinger directed was responsible for six of 15 documented deaths at a North Chicago veterans' hospital. Veterans' Affairs subsequently negotiated confidential settlements with the patients' families.
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After a stint as chancellor of the medical center at the University of Kentucky, Holsinger was tapped in 2003 by Gov. Ernie Fletcher, also a physician, to serve as the commonwealth's secretary of health.
Holsinger's term reached a low point in July 2005 when the Louisville Courier-Journal published a special report showing that Kentucky citizens had the worst health in the United States, primarily through poor individual health habits such as smoking, bad nutrition and lack of exercise. Kentucky ranked second worst nationally for cancer deaths, fifth worst for cardiovascular deaths and seventh worst for obesity, according to the paper.
Major chronic diseases cost the Kentucky Medicaid program $611 million for diabetes, $422 million for cancer, $372 million for coronary artery disease and $728 million for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the fiscal year ending June 2003.
At the time of the Courier-Journal report, Holsinger said that Kentucky had "some big mountains to climb" in terms of promoting better health among its citizens. Although he is credited with initiating changes in the state's Medicaid system to save taxpayers money, Holsinger left his position halfway through his term, five months after the newspaper report, reportedly to spend more time with his family. He joined the teaching staff of the University of Kentucky College of Public Health.
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While Holsinger's political and academic colleagues praised his nomination, United Methodist leaders in the Kentucky Annual Conference were notably silent. The frigid reception to Holsinger's nomination as surgeon general most likely stems from a lawsuit still under way between the conference and the Good Samaritan Foundation that Holsinger chairs.
In January, Holsinger, on behalf of the foundation, said he planned to launch a second appeal of a decision by Fayette Circuit Judge Gary Payne. The judge ruled in 2003 that the Kentucky Annual Conference is the rightful owner of an estimated $20 million from the foundation's 1995 sale of Good Samaritan Hospital in Lexington, KY, to Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. The conference had filed suit in 2000, claiming it owned the hospital through its historic relationship with the foundation, which until Holsinger's chairmanship reported regularly to annual conference sessions, according to the Rev. Chris Morgan's blog, "Assembled Reflections".
Under Holsinger's leadership, the foundation put the $20 million into an endowment that typically provides $1 million in annual grants for health care and health education. Judge Payne has ruled the hospital was held in trust for the conference by the foundation, and that the Kentucky Conference rightfully owns the money. An appeals court upheld his ruling and returned the case to Payne, who last December reaffirmed his earlier decision and ordered the foundation's trustees to turn the money over the conference. The appeal is still pending.
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Meanwhile, the liberal site Buzzflash.com, after reporting on his past performance, sniped: "Dr. Holsinger seems like a great choice for the VP to take hunting, but he hardly seems like the best candidate out of all the doctors in America to become our next surgeon general."
Also on Buzzflash, a reader who identified himself as a doctor wrote about Holsinger's lack of board certification: "While this probably matters less for someone who has chosen to make their life as a political hack than someone who actually takes care of patients, this is certainly something of note. As a physician, I take it to mean that he is someone who didn't care enough about his clinical training to demonstrate competence according to national standards."
Upon further reflection, there was almost nothing complimentary in that article. Americans should ask serious questions about whether Dr Holsinger is the kind of person we want to be Surgeon General.
1 comment:
i am SO glad to have run across your blog. it's eye opening (i can't wait to spend more time on it this upcoming weekend. time, during the week is NOT my friend)
you have once again proved there ARE people possessing true faith (and grace)
putting aside EVERYTHING ELSE king george has done (and i mean everything), based on his nominations ALONE, the man should be tossed out on his ear
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