ST. LOUIS — Anesthesiologist and former U.S. surgeon general Jerome Adams has emerged as a leading voice on public health and issues of equity in medicine from his new position as executive director of health equity initiatives at Purdue University, in his home state of Indiana.
He recently was a keynote speaker at the Association for Health Care Journalists annual meeting in St. Louis, where he criticized some of the reporting on him while he was surgeon general for being overly politicized and taking some of his comments out of context.
STAT sat down with him to discuss the challenges of communicating about science and health in these politically divisive times, how he’s battling to escape the long shadow of former President Donald Trump, in whose administration he served, and the struggles his family faces as his wife battles advanced cancer.
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