By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

NOW a full-time lieutenant governor, former Sen. Mike Cruz will remain in the medical practice as a part-time surgeon, while he assumes the position as the government of Guam’s healthcare czar.
Cruz moved into his new office in Adelup on Tuesday and received the baton from his predecessor Kaleo S. Moylan.
Although he has inherited Moylan’s job as the head of the government’s beautification program and guardian of the Guam Seal, Cruz said he and Gov. Felix P. Camacho agreed during the campaign period that he would be in-charge of issues relating to healthcare and military expansion.
“Those are the things that I have a little bit of expertise on,” said Cruz, a colonel in the Guam National Guard.
Cruz acknowledged that being the island’s No. 2 leader has made it impossible for him to attend to his medical practice on a full-time basis.
“I have much limited time now than when I was a senator. But I was encouraged by a panel of physicians to continue with minimal practice because I happen to have an expertise on specific areas of surgery that other surgeons are not willing to practice,” Cruz told Variety.
But he’s not complaining. After all, he said, the practice of medicine is consistent with the work that the governor expects him to do in office.
“It’s helpful to be intimately in touch with the part of our community that I’ll be working with so that I’m not out of touch with them. I can continue to see it and feel the joys or the pains or whatever experience that may be coming from the healthcare environment,” said Cruz, who was chairman of the health and community development committee in the 28th Legislature.
Cruz’s legislative staff at the 28th Legislature has joined him at his new office. He said having the same people in the team would make his job a little easier considering the knowledge and expertise in healthcare that they have developed. 
“I’m excited. I know there’s lot of obstacles and challenges ahead but they present some great opportunities that I am looking forward to,” he concluded.