Entries for July 2009

By Bernadine Healy, M.D.

President Obama has been making a hard sell on getting public opinion and Congress behind his vision to overhaul the nation's health system. Last night, the president's prime-time news conference focused almost solely on the issue. Here are a few obstacles that Obama needs to overcome:

By Bernadine Healy, M.D.

President Obama was caught off guard recently when asked how he would react if Malia, Sasha, or Michelle needed medical care not covered by the public health insurance plan he favors. It was a telling and awkward moment; he paused, then indicated he'd seek out whatever care he felt was best for his family. He recalled his grandmother's hip fracture and facing the question of whether surgery would be appropriate for an elderly woman ill with a serious cancer. Pinning or replacing a shattered hip restores mobility and relieves unbearable pain. His response—to get her hip surgery even if it meant paying out of his own pocket—was deeply personal, neither blue nor red.

[Watch the video: Dr. Healy on Challenges Ahead]

By Bernadine Healy, M.D.

When I was director of the National Institutes of Health in the early 1990s, little did I know the man I was struggling mightily to recruit to NIH would, almost two decades later, become NIH director himself. It's not that Francis Collins wasn't director material even then. It was that I was too focused on bringing him on to be the first permanent head of what was one of NIH's most important scientific efforts of the 20th century: the Human Genome Project.

It was clear through all our negotiations that Francis was an original. Devoutly religious, motorcycle riding, and boyish faced, with a haystack of blondish hair and a devilish sense of humor, he was also one of the most prominent physician-scientists on the planet, having just recently identified the first gene to be linked to cystic fibrosis. Competitive, yes. Driven, of course. And also, just plain nice.