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Chicago's Top Doc To Quit City for County Job
Produced by Gabriel Spitzer on Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Dr. Terry Mason talks to reporters earlier this year. Mason will step down as Chicago's top doc to take a job with Cook County. (WBEZ/Gabriel Spitzer)

Chicago’s commissioner of public health is leaving city government. Dr. Terry Mason will take a position with Cook County.

Chicago’s top doc will become chief medical officer for Cook County’s Health and Hospitals System. That’s a new position for the county, completing an overhaul of the health system’s top brass. Sources say Mason offered the mayor his resignation this morning.

The change in leadership comes as the health department is gearing up for flu season, and a major vaccination effort against swine flu. Alderman Ed Smith chairs the city council’s health committee.

SMITH: If a person that is coming in does not have all the information that has taken place, how to get to all of these people who need the shot, how to pay for it, that could cause some problems in the city of Chicago.

It’s not clear when Mason will leave city government or who will replace him. Mason is a urologist by training. He’s run the city’s health department for nearly four years.