Frank McDougall
Physician of Policy
Frank McDougall, 56, knows the corridors of power. He has regular Washington sit-downs with the likes of Karl Rove and Jim Jeffords. Always straddling party lines, he has worked as Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s secretary of economic development and on Judd Gregg’s finance committee. And he knows the corridors of hospitals as well. As VP of government relations for Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the largest hospital in New Hampshire, he has an inside view of the system. DHMC provides amazingly sophisticated health care in a rural setting, but they struggle with the typical health care reimbursement problems. “The regulations for Medicare are three times the volume of the IRS regulations,” says McDougall. “One thing doctors and nurses say is ‘First do no harm.’ I try to educate public officials to do no harm with policy decisions they make while trying to improve the system.”
New Hampshire Magazine knows where “It” is at. Each November, we identify the state’s most happening people and publish their names and profiles in our annual “It List.”
So what defines an “It” Person?
How about buzz, panache, je ne sais quoi, currency, a person whose time has come, a person of tomorrow, a timeless person, noteworthy, below the radar, in the news, in the know, hot, cool, high impact, slippery, a mover and shaker, a humble saint, a behind-the-scenes operator, a scenery chewer, an unsung hero, a hero who knows how to sing.
It’s a quality that’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it.
Above is one member of the 2006 It List.
