The Final Four for VHA Job

I have some pretty good intel that the Veterans Affairs Department has narrowed its search for new undersecretary of health and head of the Veterans Health Administration to these four candidates:

--Dr. John R. Feussner, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

--Dr. Stephan Fihn, director of Northwest Health Services Research and Development Field Program at VA in the Puget Sound Health Care System.

--Dr. Robert (Randy) Petzel, who has been VA acting principal deputy under secretary for health since May.

--William Schoenhard, who served as chief operating officer at SSM Health Care Corp. in St. Louis, Mo., from 1986 until the beginning of August.

SSM operates 220 acute-care hospitals and two nursing homes in four Midwest sates with a staff of 23,000.

Though not a doctor, VA handicappers view Schoenhard as the guy most likely to end up with the VHA job, which requires someone with the kind of administrative experience he can bring to the job.

Schoenhard also is a veteran and served as a damage control officer on the destroyer tender USS Samuel Gompers in the Philippines and Vietnam.

Every now and then VHA really needs someone experienced with damage control, such as managing the fallout of the VA patient scheduling debacle and the ongoing colonoscopy scandal.