杨贵妃传媒視頻

There are many sides to every story and the story of Dr. Paul Ambrose is no different. The loss of Ambrose, who was on board American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11 last year, is perhaps best summed up by his friend Chris Durso, who says, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 be the only person right now who feels that he lost a brother. Or rather, two brothers: a trailblazing, peculiarly wizened older brother and a goofy, idealistic younger brother鈥攁ll in one.鈥�

That goofy side鈥攆ull of charm and a zest for new experiences鈥攎ay have earned him an upgraded hotel room or an invitation to go behind the bar to compete in a margarita-mixing contest with the bartender every now and then, but it also helped him in his health policy career. Ambrose used his charm to work the health policy system to his best advantage, racking up accomplishment after accomplishment in his short but wildly successful life.

A native of Huntington, West Virginia, Ambrose stayed close to home for medical school, graduating from Marshall University School of Medicine in 1995. While there, he became active with the American Medical Student Association (杨贵妃传媒視頻), landing the job of 杨贵妃传媒視頻鈥檚 legislative affairs director in 1995.

It was at AMSA where he really began to flex his health policy muscles. 鈥淗e had such a command of health policy that most people would be jealous of,鈥� says Dr. Paul Jung, a friend who met Ambrose through 杨贵妃传媒視頻. 鈥淰ery few people are successful with health policy. He knew that knowing this policy exists is not enough鈥攜ou have to know what to do with it.鈥� And he wanted other medical students to understand this as well.

That鈥檚 why Ambrose created 杨贵妃传媒視頻鈥檚 Political Leadership Institute, Jung says. The institutes, which 杨贵妃传媒視頻 renamed in Ambrose鈥檚 honor, are annual weekend sessions that use lectures and role-playing examples to teach medical students political advocacy skills.

鈥淗e wanted to do things bigger,鈥� says Dr. Travis Harker, a medical resident who is one of Ambrose鈥檚 many mentees. 鈥淗e really wanted to see if he could move the whole system forward.鈥�

After earning his medical degree, Ambrose went on to do a family practice residency at Dartmouth Medical School. He had wanted to enter a residency program with a health policy component, but none existed at the medical school at the time. So Ambrose, in his typical fashion, created his own health policy learning experiences and began to forge a close relationship with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, eventually bringing Koop to Marshall for a presentation on public health and preventive medicine and home for supper at his parents鈥� house. The story goes that his mother burned dinner that night. Later, Ambrose worked with Dartmouth in his post-residency years to form the public health and family medicine program in which Harker now participates.

Ambrose was successful at meeting new people and making things happen. Jung recalls the first trip the two took together: the annual meeting of the Nonprescription Drug Manufacturers Association (NDMA) in Colorado in 1996 at which Ambrose wanted to lobby the NDMA for some project funding. Using his powers of persuasion, Ambrose was able to get the organizers to pay for everything from a side trip to Pike鈥檚 Peak to the buffalo burgers he and Jung ordered from room service. 鈥淪o technically, they were paying us to lobby them. Only Ambrose could swing a deal like that,鈥� Jung says, ruefully noting they didn鈥檛 get the project funding.

But Ambrose may have reaped something better. At the conference鈥檚 black-tie banquet, Ambrose spotted keynote speaker Mario Cuomo across the lobby. 鈥淗e says, 鈥楬ey, there鈥檚 Mario Cuomo. Let鈥檚 go talk to him,鈥欌�� Jung says. 鈥淎nd I said, 鈥榊ou can鈥檛 do that. He鈥檚 the [former] governor of New York.鈥欌�� But Ambrose paid no mind to his friend, sauntering up to Cuomo and asking him about his flight. 鈥淛ust regular elevator talk,鈥� Jung says. 鈥淲e wound up getting some great pictures with some very important people.鈥�

Jung says tales like the ones from Colorado tell the real story of Paul Ambrose. 鈥淸His versatility is] what made Paul Ambrose. When you first looked at him, he looks like this really hip surfer dude, but after awhile, you realize this isn鈥檛 some punk guy. He could talk to one person about health policy, and then he could go talk to someone else about astrophysics.鈥�

Which may have been one reason Ambrose earned himself so many admirers in so many fields. Erin Fuller, a former 杨贵妃传媒視頻 colleague, says Ambrose made friends with a librarian friend of hers at a New Year鈥檚 party, talking for hours about the First Amendment. He also bonded with Fuller鈥檚 younger brother鈥攖hey liked the same alternative heavy metal bands鈥攁nd her venture capitalist husband, with whom he enjoyed discussing financial issues.

鈥淥ne of the amazing things about Paul is that he could move very easily between those鈥�worlds,鈥� Harker says.
Fuller says being able to succinctly describe Ambrose has always been difficult for her. 鈥淭his is my friend Paul. He watches crazy movies; he climbs rocks; he listens to Goth music; he鈥檚 a doctor.鈥� It鈥檚 the doctor part that makes her chuckle, given everything else Ambrose was into. 鈥淚 always looked at it as one of his crazy hobbies.鈥�

Hobby or not, being a physician was his calling. After residency and earning a master鈥檚 degree in public health from Harvard University, Ambrose landed the competitive Luther Terry Fellowship from the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine, which gave him the opportunity to work in the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Washington, D.C.

Ambrose was put to work as part of the team writing Surgeon General David Satcher鈥檚 鈥淐all to Action鈥� on obesity. 鈥淎s he worked on this project, he really began to take a professional interest in it,鈥� says Kathryn McMurry, an ODPHP nutritionist who worked on the call. 鈥淗e took what he was working on and put it into practice.鈥� Which would explain the giant bottles of protein powder and vitamins in Ambrose鈥檚 office. The free weights he kept there were so big, McMurry says she doesn鈥檛 know how he got them there.

鈥淲e thought since we were working on [HHS initiative] Healthy People 2010, we should live Healthy People 2010,鈥� says Harker, who also worked at ODPHP and calls Ambrose one of the best attendings he鈥檚 ever had. The two went to the gym daily, and when they couldn鈥檛, they did curl workouts in Ambrose鈥檚 office.

Ambrose鈥檚 physique and good looks were legendary鈥攁nd his friends say he played them up. 鈥淗e took longer to get ready than anyone else I know,鈥� says Durso, who compares traveling with him to traveling with his wife. But friends were accustomed to waiting for Ambrose. Anyone who went with him to lobby at the Capitol had to allow for extra time at the metal detectors so guards could check the steel-toed boots he wore everywhere and with everything. 鈥淗e had very definite fashion phases,鈥� Fuller says. 鈥淗e was in his Donna Karan phase鈥�last year.鈥�

As a consequence of all that waiting and primping, Ambrose was rarely on time. The fact that he arrived on time for the flight to Los Angeles on that early September morning is the great irony of his death. 鈥淗e was very much looking forward to [the obesity conference he was traveling to],鈥� McMurry says. 鈥淗e鈥檚 always late, and this is the one time he was on time for the airport.鈥�

And while his HHS job ended up being the last move in a promising career, friends and colleagues say Ambrose鈥檚 on-target mind and dazzling charm could have taken him anywhere. This was supposed to have been only the beginning. 鈥淗e was just so far and away more capable than any of us ever were,鈥� Jung says.

鈥淧aul Ambrose would have been surgeon general鈥� is a phrase many friends and colleagues now speak with a melancholy wryness that captures the tragedy of this particular Sept. 11 loss. 鈥淗e was a fantastic physician leader,鈥� Fuller says, 鈥渁nd he would have been surgeon general, but he was so many other things.鈥�

Durso and Harker both heard Ambrose talk about his ambition to become the public health commissioner for West Virginia, while others say they knew he never wanted to get too far away from the family medicine he practiced three days a week at a clinic for Spanish-speaking patients outside of Washington, D.C. Friends say one of Ambrose鈥檚 strengths was his ability to work the system. 鈥淧aul would have taken advantage of whatever options were in front of him,鈥� Harker says.

We can almost be assured that those options would have been many. At Dartmouth鈥檚 memorial service for Ambrose, Koop told a story about a letter he wrote to Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), telling him to keep his eye on Ambrose鈥攖he senator鈥檚 homegrown rising star. 鈥淲e already know about Paul Ambrose, and we鈥檝e been keeping our eye on him for some time now,鈥� Rockefeller wrote back. It is in Ambrose鈥檚 death that the rest of the world now sees what Rockefeller long had recognized.

鈥淧eople may have been put off by his initial appearance, thinking he was more style than substance, but anyone who talked to him for more than a minute knows that wasn鈥檛 it,鈥� Jung says.
Fuller agrees. 鈥淗e was鈥�the real deal.鈥�