Attacks are something with which Dr. Griffith became intimately familiar last fall, when his political opponent leaked a sealed 1987 peer review report alleging Dr. Griffith's "suboptimal treatment" of patients in Huntsville Hospital's radiation oncology department, which he founded in 1975. Having resigned from the hospital in '89 just as its executive board was about to vote to revoke his practicing privileges, Dr. Griffith claims the hospital's stance was a reaction to one of his outside health care ventures. "I didn't make any friends when I opened a competing clinic," he says, claiming that the board's impending vote "had nothing to do with patient care." He notes that radiation oncologist Gregory Cotter, MD, an erstwhile colleague at Huntsville Hospital and a chancellor of the American College of Radiation Oncology (ACRO)--whose work was also reviewed in the '87 report--publicly defended Dr. Griffith's medical record during the final days of his congressional campaign.

His tone is subdued but firm as he addresses the controversy, suggesting that if the resulting media flap inflicted any deep wounds, he's not about to reveal the scars. That thick skin has been evident since his days at Louisiana State University School of Medicine, says close friend and former classmate Robert Baird, MD, a Huntsville colorectal surgeon. "Things that would hurt my feelings pretty bad just go right off of him--[it] doesn't bother him at all," laughs Dr. Baird. "He really likes that give and take."

Although he doesn't anticipate a return to medicine, Dr. Griffith maintains his medical license and remains abreast of developments in radiation therapy. When he attended last year's annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) to discuss his candidacy, he marveled at the exhibits--and how CT and MRI have revolutionized his former profession. "It was incredible [to see] what's happening with equipment," he says. "I was the first physician in Alabama to do a radioactive gold grain implant for prostate cancer, and now that I see the techniques being used today, I realize how primitive our techniques were in the late '70s. It's just remarkable."

But make no mistake: He'd rather engage in political maneuvering than treatment planning--proving that an old doc can indeed teach himself new tricks. While he's open to additional terms in Congress, he's keenly aware that such plans can be undone by forces beyond the control of man and medicine. "Being a radiation oncologist, [I] know how fragile humanity is," he says. "So whatever I'm allowed to do, I'll do."

Jeff Bell is managing editor at ADVANCE.