alright, so as many of you might know, the trump administration “asked” the previous surgeon general to resign. his name was dr. vivek murthy, he was an obama pick, and he was highly qualified, so of course he had to go. presumably, the trump administration will be working to replace him with someone who says abortion and vaccines cause cancer, but smoking does not ¯_(ツ)_/¯ however, in the meantime, this is our acting surgeon general:
her name is dr. sylvia trent-adams, and she is highly fucking qualified. she is the first surgeon general that doesn’t have an md (i.e. is not a medical doctor) but she does have a phd in nursing and a masters degree in health policy. she was the deputy surgeon general before the trump admin booted murthy. she is absolutely the most logical choice to be the acting surgeon general, and she is probably a thousand times more qualified than whatever fuckup trump is going to appoint to the position. so there’s no problem here, right?
hahaha yeah right, guess again. and while some of the criticism seems to be rooted in??? a complete lack of awareness of what the surgeon general does??? (they primarily advise the executive branch and the public on public health issues). a lot of it just seems to be “a NURSE couldn’t POSSIBLY be as educated or informed about medical/scientific issues as a doctor is!!” which is…pretty fuckin ridiculous when you think about the fact that this is a woman who has a motherfuckin phd.
fun fact: the primary reason to get a phd in nursing is because you’re interested in a career in research and/or administration. it’s basically four years (after your four years you spent getting your bsn) of learning about health policy, public health, epidemiology, research, etc. and to suggest that a highly educated woman is the equivalent of an anti-vaxxer, or that she’s unqualified to, you know, sift through peer-reviewed articles in order to make conclusions about health policy, when she probably spent a good portion of her 8+ years of higher education doing just that, is absolutely fucking ridiculous.
people act like there’s no way a nurse could know as much / more than an md about anything remotely health related–even if it’s something that many mds aren’t even trained in, like health economics or wtfever–and it’s just one way that the knowledge and skills of nursing professionals are completely devalued in our society, because nursing is typically viewed as a “woman’s job.”
Lmao they really think the surgeon general is performing surgery
A Middleground 