The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is looking for a new director. After only two years as the agency’s leader, Massachusetts resident Dr. Rochelle Walensky has called it quits.
The CDC, part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, works to protect us from health and disease risks and is responsible for communicating serious public health issues to the nation with honest, timely and credible information. Sadly, the CDC and its leader did not measure up to its important mission during the COVID pandemic!.
Unfortunately, President Biden’s selection of Walensky for this vital public health assignment resulted in a tumultuous experience for her and the agency from which they have yet to fully recover.
Unlike Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, who had expertise in politics, public communications, public policy and executive leadership as mayor of Boston, Walensky had no such experience. This created serious credibility challenges for her and the CDC during the pandemic. While Walensky served as director of the 50-person infectious disease department at Massachusetts General Hospital and distinguished herself as a researcher and medical school professor, she never managed a large organization like the CDC with 12,000 employees. She had no experience in public, risk and crisis communications, and had no understanding and appreciation for the rough and tumble world of news reporting and Washington politics. She was clearly behind the eight ball in attempting to lead this public health agency during the COVID crisis.
Her poor communications skills during the chaotic pandemic seriously undermined her credibility as an authoritative spokesperson on this crisis. Local, state and federal public health and medical experts justifiably criticized her for delivering confusing information to the American people on masking, testing, vaccines and isolation. This led to the CDC being attacked for questionable and credible public health information and advice. Another misstep was her lack of a full time presence at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, preferring instead to split her time between CDC headquarters and working remotely from home in Massachusetts. The CDC chief should have been embedded at headquarters with her team day in and day out.
Her pledge of a major reorganization of the CDC to make it better able to respond quickly to upcoming public health crises never gained traction.
It is clear that Biden must now recruit a public health expert who has experience and a successful track record of leading a large, multi-layered organization as a way of bringing greater stability and restoring the public credibility of this important federal agency. The CDC has more than enough respected scientists and infectious disease researchers and physicians in Atlanta; what it needs now is a real and tested organizational leader, based in Atlanta, with exceptional political, communications and management skills to effectively prepare for and lead the CDC during the next crisis. Walensky had the best of intentions, but the lack of leadership gravitas led to her disappointing tenure.
Billerica’s Rick Pozniak has extensive experience in health and risk communications. The New England Society for Health Care Communications named him their COVID communications expert.