Why Dr. Sanjay Gupta said no

last updated 8 January 2015

“So sad,” said Sara K. Smith in NBC Philadelphia. CNN celebrity doctor Sanjay Gupta has declined an offer from President Obama, dashing “our collective dreams” of having a “sexy surgeon general,” instead of the “lecturey old coot” or other eccentric usually tapped to tell us “to eat less and exercise.” Gupta says that, with a third daughter on the way, he wants more family time, but others say it’s “about the dough.”

Gupta “has built a lucrative media empire,” certainly, said Michael Shear and Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post, but sources say he was also “very disheartened” by the derailing of Tom Daschle's nomination as health secretary, and worried he’d have little say over health reform. Whatever the reason, the low-profile office is no longer getting a “mass-media jolt.”