Valerie Arkoosh, MD – Candidate for Congress (Part 3 of 3)

Valerie Arkoosh, MD, is a former Chair of Anesthesiology, a health policy expert, and a candidate for Congress running in the Democratic primary in the 13th Pennsylvania district. We recently had time to speak to Dr. Arkoosh about her career as a physician and what she hopes to accomplish if elected to Congress. Dr. Valerie Arkoosh What are the most important skills you learned as a Chair that will help you if you are elected to Congress? As an anesthesiologist you learn very early how to always appear calm! But, really, I think the skills of bringing people together who often have very different viewpoints about what needs to happen next. And, getting people to sit down and talk and getting agreement on what’s in the best interests of our mission and really keeping people focused on the most important thing. I really honed those skills and, frankly, I think those skills will be really incredibly useful in congress If you are elected to Congress what will be your first priority legislatively? Number one on my list is raising minimum wage. If we haven’t already raised the minimum wage by then that would certainly be one of the first pieces of legislation that I would like to get involved with. We have 35,000 families …. in the 13th living at poverty level or below. Two thirds of minimum wage workers are women and this is really an issue that needs addressing and quickly. Some states have already raised the minimum wage Right now, Pennsylvania uses the federal minimum wa...
Source: Inside Surgery - Category: Surgery Authors: Tags: Medical News Wire anesthesiologist candidate congress Pennsylvania Valerie Arkoosh Source Type: blogs