DVA Secretary Sees Patients

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Dave Philipps and Nicholas Fandos, VA Chief Tries New Approach: Seeing Patients. New York Times, May 13, 2017 (front page).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/ ... aking-standout.html

Quote:

"The doctor was David Shulkin, the new secretary of veterans affairs * * * Dr Shulkin believes it is impossible to right the stumbling bureaucracy used by nine million veterans without understanding the experience of patients in the examining room. So Dr Shulkin, the leader of the country's second-largest federal agency, has been seeing patients regularly, both in person and remotely, since he was named [by president Obama and confirmed by senate] the Department of Veterans Affairs' under secretary of health in mid-2015 to help turn it around after the scandal over a cover-up of appointment delays. * * * the department has more than 350,000 employees and 1,700 facilities.

"Dr Shulkin, by his own admission, is an unlikely choice to overhaul veterans services under President Trump. The son of an Army psychiatrist, he is not a veteran — a first for the head of the agency. And when Dr Shulkin led the medical side of the department in the Obama administration, Mr Trump regularly criticized the agency — and by association Dr Shulkin — as corrupt and incompetent. After the election, Dr Shulkin, who had already packed up his office, was not the president's first choice to lead the troubled agency. He was not even his fourth or fifth.  It was only after a number of leaders in private health care and reliable Republican circles turned down the post that Dr. Shulkin’s name came up. He was recommended by Mr Trump's ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman, who knows Dr Shulkin personally, according to a White House official familiar with the process.

"In a cabinet of outsiders, many eager to deconstruct the departments they oversee, Dr Shulkin wants to rebuild his. * * * the mild-mannered defender of government health care was confirmed by the Senate, 100 to zero.  'We haven't passed a kidney stone [just kidding; the verb 'pass' is associated with a law-making body, such as pass a legislation] unanimously in years, much less a cabinet secretary,' said Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia and chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. (Mr Trump is so pleased with the distinction that he has taken to calling Dr Shulkin 'the 100 to nothing man,' he said during an appearance at the department last month.) Even the department's most consistent critics have quieted their sirens, at least for now. * * * In June, [this year,] it plans to begin offering free mental health care to veterans long barred from its hospitals because of less-than-honorable discharges, including thousands with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Beginning at the Medical College of Pennsylvania [see note(d)] in Philadelphia, he was drawn into the obscure field of health care management. He became a tireless student of efficiency.

Note:
(a) Dr David Shulkin is Jewish.
(i) The Jewish surname Shulkin (from Belarus) means child "of the Yiddish female personal name Shulke, a pet form of the biblical Hebrew name Shulamith."  Dictionary of American family Names.
(ii) The family names of many Russian Jews has a suffix kin. See, eg, the Jewish surname Sorkin (from Belarus) means child of Sarah (Hebrew: Sorka; meaning a woman of high ranking, usually translated as princess).
(iii) Slavic name suffixes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_name_suffixes
("-in (-ina): Russia")

(b)
(i) Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) has a secretary, deputy secretary, three undersecretaries, three assistant secretary (respectively: for Congressional and Legislative Affairs; for Information and Technology; and for Policy and Planning).
(ii) United States Department of Veterans Affairs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un ... of_Veterans_Affairs
(section 3 Organization: "The Department has three main subdivisions, known as Administrations, each headed by an Undersecretary[, one of which is] Veterans Health Administration (VHA)" headed by Under Secretary for Health)

(c) United States Department of Defense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense

Quote: "The Department is the largest employer in the world, with nearly 1.3 million active duty servicemen and women as of 2016. Adding to its employees are over 801,000 National Guardsmen and Reservists from the four services, and over 740,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2.8 million employees."  (footnotes omitted)

(d) Drexel University College of Medicine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dre ... College_of_Medicine
(Medical College of Pennsylvania merged in 1993 with a private hospital, both of which were then acquired in 2002 by Drexel University, which had not had a medical school)