Feature
Interview with Stephen L. Ferrara, MD, FSIR
SIR member Stephen L. Ferrara, MD, FSIR, was the society’s Health Policy and Economics Division councilor in 2016, having previously served on several committees focused on economics and quality improvement. He participated in the 2013 Leadership Development Academy (and again in 2015 as adviser) and frequently serves as Annual Scientific Meeting faculty. He served in the U.S. Navy for 25 years and was appointed to serve as the Navy’s Chief Medical Officer from 2013 to 2015. He retired in 2016 with the rank of captain and is now seeking election to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent Arizona’s 9th Congressional District. We recently sat down with Dr. Ferrara to discuss his vision, interests and experiences on the campaign trail.
Congratulations on your transition from full- time clinical practice to politics. What first drew you to medicine—IR in particular? As a molecular biology major at UCLA, I was quickly drawn to the problem-solving and scientific nature of medicine. In my second year, however, I experienced a life-changing event when I suddenly lost my mom to a fatal stroke at only 57 years old. Her premature death was the result of a lack of trust in doctors and the medical system in general. Losing my mom at such a young age steeled my efforts on becoming the kind of doctor who would connect with patients the way that no doctor had connected with my mom.
When the first Gulf War broke out in January of my senior year of college, I saw an opportunity to heed two callings— medicine and public service. I accepted a commission in the Navy and entered the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland (America’s military academy for medical school), with a plan to become a trauma surgeon. I figured surgery suited my desire to be a problem solver and I assumed it was also the most challenging discipline, which appealed to me. After completing my surgical internship, I went to the
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Fleet where the Navy sends all its future surgeons to be general medical officers between internship and residency. I went to the Marines, deployed to the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, and learned to be a country doctor and jack of all trades.
That tour gave me the opportunity to step off the treadmill and ask myself what I really wanted to do now that I had a bit of experience. By then I’d been exposed to interventional radiology and knew IRs were where surgeons and internists alike turned when they had problems or complications that they couldn’t solve. The IRs were great to work with (and they worked with everyone in the hospital), and they were procedure-based specialists who craved solving the most complex problems. Not to mention, the IRs just seemed to love their work and were so much happier than everyone else! From an overseas port in the midst of deployment, I called an audible on my career plan and switched to interventional radiology. That was one of my best decisions ever.
Flash forward to today . . . How did you get interested in running for office? I’m a lifelong Navy guy so being in public service is a natural. It’s in my DNA. I’ve always loved the mission—being part of something bigger than myself and serving the country. Over the years and through multiple deployments, I’ve been intimately exposed to foreign and diplomatic policy. In 2005, as part of the tsunami relief effort in Indonesia (the world’s most populous Muslim country), I participated in an experimental foreign policy strategy called medical diplomacy. Working with the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Defense Department, I grew to enjoy all the interdepartmental interaction and became very attracted to the idea of staying in federal service—although I wasn’t necessarily thinking about it in an elected capacity at that point.
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