Bush backs Hispanic surgeon general nominee

JERRY KAMMER GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Bush told a wry story Tuesday about his reaction to reports about the Hollywood-style heroics of the Arizona physician he was considering for surgeon general, the nation's top health educator.

"When I first learned that Dr. Richard Carmona once dangled out of a moving helicopter, I worried that maybe he wasn't the best guy to educate our Americans about reducing health risk," Bush said at a White House ceremony where he announced he had nominated Carmona for the job.

Bush ticked off some of the career highlights of his nominee: Army Green Beret veteran of the Vietnam War, member of the Pima County Sheriff's Office SWAT team, first a nurse and then a physician.

"Dr. Carmona has redefined the term 'hands-on medicine,' " Bush said.

The president also noted that Carmona's background in law enforcement, emergency medicine and community preparedness are valuable preparation for a prospective surgeon general at a time when terrorism has become a major domestic concern.

Carmona spoke briefly at the ceremony, at which Bush also announced his nomination of Dr. Elias Zerhouni, a 50-year-old immigrant from Algeria who is now at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, to be director of the National Institutes of Health.

Carmona, who grew up in Harlem, N.Y., after his parents moved from Puerto Rico, moved between English and Spanish as he told Bush, "You have enabled me to appreciate the American dream."

Carmona, 52, now faces confirmation in the Senate, where the review process has often been acrimonious, especially on the issue of abortion rights.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Carmona already had bipartisan support and predicted he would easily win confirmation.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said Carmona's views on abortion and other issues had been reviewed as part of the extensive pre-nomination review.

If Carmona is confirmed, he will become the nation's second Hispanic surgeon general, after Antonia Novello, who was appointed in 1990 by President George Bush and who attended Tuesday's ceremony.

"I think he's going to be a very good role model for the Hispanic youth," Novello said, "because he can say 'I was poor. I had nothing, I am a school dropout, but when you really put your plans into gear, you can accomplish anything you set out to do.' "

After dropping out of school to help take care of two brothers and a sister, Carmona served in the Army in Vietnam, where he was awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. After earning his general equivalency degree, he became a nurse and then a medical doctor, part of a steady professional ascent that has taken him to a professorship at the University of Arizona School of Public Health. He and his wife, Diane, are the parents of four children, three of whom they adopted.

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