Rejection from Dr. David Satcher, but otherwise a good day.

A while ago while I was in one of my crazy neurotic modes, I sent an email to the office of Dr. David Satcher, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Satcher, Surgeon General appointed by Bill Clinton, basically my hero), to see if he would be interested in speaking at UT for DLSC, and I got my sad rejection letter today. It was super sad. But CRAZY because HE'S currently in Atlanta at Morehouse and I'M in Atlanta and he's done stuff with The Carter Center in the past before, and I was like, whoa, mad coincidence, because I think I sent him that email BEFORE I even knew I was going to be here. But yeah this email titled "From the Office of David Satcher," popped into my mailbox, and you can tell I freaked out a lil.

The sad, sad, letter:

June 10, 2008

Ms. Richa Gupta

Junior, The University of Texas at Austin

B.S. Biology Honors

B.A. Plan II Honors

Austin, Texas

Dear Ms. Gupta:

First, our sincere apology for the time it has taken for this office to reply to your request. Thank you for the invitation to Dr. Satcher to be the Speaker at your Dean’s Scholars Program. Dr. Satcher unfortunately regrets that he will not be able to honor this request.

Dr. Satcher is trying to finish a book and develop the Satcher Health Leadership Institute here at Morehouse School of Medicine requiring him to take a sabbatical from speaking except to raise funds for SHLI.

Thank you again for the invitation.

Sincerely,

C.C. Matthews

C.C. Matthews

Program Assistant II

The Satcher Health Leadership Institute

at Morehouse School of Medicine

Email: ccmatthews@msm.edu

But I'm not so devastated because there are lots and lots of other AWESOME options.... Details to be continued....in a later post if I can make something happen. I don't want to jinx ANYTHING.

Anywho, today was a fabulous day. I spent the day in a session with my staff to pick the Rosalynn Carter Journalism Fellows in Mental Health. It was a blasty blast. I met a this very genial professor on staff at the Rollins School of public health at Emory, an MD/MPH, he practices clinically, teaches, AND specializes in health policy, and I was just like, dude. I want to be you in ten years please. He gave me his card, so IF I get into Emory Med/Rollins, he's the first guy I'm contacting. oh myjeezy.

I feel like I'm finally getting into the groove of things with work, I just really need to get my ass into gear with med school apps. Good.ness. It's really starting to stress/freak me out. And it's like my internship is a constant reminder of why I'm applying to med/grad school in the first place and then I get home after work every day and I'm like, crap I should be working on med school apps, but I am sooo freakin lazy and they are taking me forever and my personal statement is nowhere near what I want it to be. Ugh. I'll get it done if I keep hacking at it, is what I tell myself over and over. And I think it's kind of nice that I'm working on apps while I intern, because this internship is seriously ALL the motivation in the WORLD to do these applications really well. I think I actually enjoy filling them out once I get in one of my neurotic "fill-this-out-NOW-because-you-want-to-change-the-world" kind of moods, and knowing that these things are just the first step in the long process of getting me started on working on the kinds of things I want to work on for the rest of my life.

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Quick EDIT:

I would like EVERYONE to know that according to my staff director at TCC, (who was an officer in Health and Human Services when Bill Clinton was president and Hillary Clinton tried to get universal healthcare in 1993), told me his expert opinion on her healthcare plan yesterday. He said that hers was one of the most well-thought out, well-formulated plans ever, and that it had some of the brightest minds in this country working on it. And the only reason it failed was not because of the plan itself, but rather because it did not get the political support or public support that it needed. Just like it is today where you have major health industry players like insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies lobbying SO HARD against getting these kinds of plans implemented, on top of conservatives who sadly love calling universal healthcare "socialized medicine" and giving it that kind of reputation. So in summary, its failure really had little to do with Clinton or her way of handling things, but more to do with a lack of support politically and from the public.

Just had to put that out there. Even though I totally support Obama for the good he's going to do in improving the image of the U.S. abroad, Clinton had some of her domestic policies straight.