Gulf War Vet for Top VA Health Post?
By
Bob Brewin
I'm picking up strong signals that the Obama administration may tap <a href=http://www.iwu.edu/ondra.shtml>Dr. Stephen Ondra</a>, professor of neurological surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, as the new under secretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration.
I'm picking up strong signals that the Obama administration may tap Dr. Stephen Ondra, professor of neurological surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, as the new under secretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration.
Ondra did his residency at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and served with an Amy medical unit stationed in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. He also was an early backer of President Obama, and signed on with the his campaign's Veterans Advisory Committee in November 2007.
Ondra also is a heavy hitter when it comes to supporting Democrats running for office, contributing a total of $48,155 in 2007 and 2008.
I hear that Ondra already has started work for VA as a senior policy advisor to Secretary Eric Shinseki, and his nomination as under secretary for health will come real soon now.
If, tapped, Ondra will replace Dr. Michael Kussman, a Bush administration holdover who announced his resignation this month in the wake of the collapse of the eight-year-old, $167 million project to develop a core computer application to schedule patient appointments at VA hospitals.
VA is supposed to give me an update on plans to replace that patient scheduling system anytime now, one of a mess of unanswered queries stacked up at the department like airplanes circling Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in a blizzard.