Former U.S. health chief returns to roots to campaign

By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES, Feb 5 (Reuters Life!) - Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona says it's payback time as he goes back to his roots to campaign for people to look after their health.

Last month, he returned to his childhood home in New York City to bestow the Surgeon General's Medallion on Dr. Richard Izquierdo, his childhood doctor and founder of the Urban Health Plan, which serves more than 27,000 patients in the Bronx.

"It's fitting that my last Medallion would be given to my first doctor, and to a man who has guided my footsteps from the time I was a poor child running the streets," said Carmona, who was Surgeon General from 2002 through 2006.

Since last October Carmona has been chief executive of the health division at Canyon Ranch and president of the nonprofit Canyon Ranch Institute.

Carmona said his positions at Canyon Ranch -- best known for its luxury spa destination resorts in Arizona and Massachusetts -- give him a platform to carry on with his work.

"It's part of my social obligation to not forget my roots and to continue to return to make it better for the people who come behind me," Carmona said.

He awarded 10 staffers from Urban Health Plan with scholarships to the Canyon Ranch Life Enhancement Program, a medical education program that began about 14 years ago.

Carmona said he had witnessed first-hand how poor health choices are hurting people.