Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams and his wife, Lacey, have coined a term they call the Trump Effect. The term is used in relationship to difficulties the couple experiences due to Adams’ time serving in the Trump administration. He said he isn’t speaking out to complain about his inability to find work but “it is context.”

Adams found a new job after about eight months. Adams was looking for a spot in academia after his time at the White House was finished. He said he was rejected because universities were concerned about reactions from left-leaning students. Universities kowtow to leftists and conservatives are frequently shut out of such positions so that isn’t so surprising. He was unable to secure a job in the corporate world, too. Eventually he was hired by Purdue University President Mitch Daniels, a former Indiana governor. He hired Adams as the first executive director of health equity initiatives at Purdue. Daniels is a solid Republican and no doubt was doing what he could for a fellow Republican. It sounds as though he created the position for Adams.

Now Jerome bristles at his forever label as “Trump’s surgeon general,” an image sealed by his highly public role during the much-criticized early White House response to the coronavirus pandemic. Other surgeons general, he feels, have been less intensely identified with the president who appointed them, permitting them to glide into a life of prestigious and sometimes lucrative opportunities, unencumbered by partisan politics.

Not him. “It was a lot harder than he thought to find a landing spot because of the Trump Effect,” Lacey said. For eight months after leaving office, Jerome could not find a job. The couple started to worry about how they would support their three children, especially since Lacey does not work outside the home.

“People still are afraid to touch anything that is associated with Trump,” Jerome said. Though he was quick to add in the interview that he is “not complaining.” He added, “It is context.”

It’s been two years since Adams and his family moved back to Indianapolis after he left office as America’s 20th surgeon general. He wanted to take the job of surgeon general, he said, because he thought he could reach a greater audience in battling the opioid crisis. Then the pandemic happened and he takes criticism from the left (for working in the Trump administration) and the right (for some of his medical opinions during the pandemic).

His wife, Lacey, didn’t want him to take the job as surgeon general in the first place. She said she “hated Trump” and they had a comfortable life in Indiana with their three children. Adams practiced anesthesiology and he served as state health commissioner under then-Indiana governor Mike Pence.

Many former Trump administration people have not exactly flourished since their time in the Trump administration. The Washington Post calls it “a kind of reverse Midas touch.” They are shunned. That could have been predicted, as we saw how members of the administration were treated by the general public in D.C. and the surrounding areas when they went about their normal lives. Remember the stories of people like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family being asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia when staff refused to serve them? The way members of Trump’s administration were treated in public, whether their families were present or not, was truly a new low for personal discourse due to politics.

Those who made livings off of being in the Trump administration but now trash him are the ones who are cashing in, whether it is with television gigs or book deals. Adams is using his social media presence as a tool to promote awareness of his wife’s battle with melanoma. He likes to argue on Twitter, his wife said, and it often devolves into political arguments. Now he’s focused on her third battle with skin cancer.

Lacey, a fair-skinned white woman, frequently used tanning beds in her younger days and didn’t worry much about her skin growing up in the Midwest. After having a mole removed, she changed her ways. She started getting regular dermatology checks. As she was unpacking in D.C., she experienced a reoccurrence and had surgery and treatment. Now she is in her third battle with the disease.

She has been speaking and writing about the disease that lurks inside her and threatens to deprive her of so many things she looks forward to, like the days her children, now 18, 16 and 12, graduate or get married.

Some days she is too ill from side effects of her treatments to do much. But other times she is full of energy and ready to go. People might look at her and not know she is sick, and that is one of her points: Melanoma is a stealthy disease, the doctors keep telling her. It can hide inside people without any outward signs. She had once had a mole, but other times nothing showed up on her skin. The disease was hiding from her.

She understands that she has been given a platform few have. No one would be listening to a mom from Indiana if she were not the wife of the former surgeon general.

So, she is trying to educate people about melanoma, as is her husband. While he is often criticized on Twitter for some of his opinions and his critics sometimes drag his family into the Twitter wars, Adams is finding some of his usual critics are putting politics aside to wish his wife well.

My wife gets more upset than I do at the nasty comments I get on here. Yet she said it was amazing the replies to this tweet that are “I disagree with almost all you say or do, but wish your wife the best.”

It shows we can come together when we focus on humanity > politics.❤️ https://t.co/jOUpHH4HRO

— Jerome Adams (@JeromeAdamsMD) October 28, 2022

I hope she is better soon.🙏🙏🙏🙏

— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇦🇺🇸💪🏿👩‍🎓 (@rweingarten) November 25, 2022

Randi Weingarten? Who knew she could be a decent human being to a Republican?

Adams is not happy that Trump is running again. He said it makes things harder for him.

Adams, 48, called the 76-year-old former commander in chief “a force that really does take the air out of the room.”

“The Trump hangover is still impacting me in significant ways.” he added.

Adams also lamented Trump’s announcement of his presidential candidacy in 2024, saying that the former president’s third run at the White House “will make things more difficult for me.”

One difficulty Adams had as surgeon general was his lack of communication skills, especially as the pandemic began. There were confusing messages delivered by medical experts and White House personnel, including him. He was unclear about masks, for example, asking people not to buy them in the beginning so that there wouldn’t be a shortage for medical professionals. At the same time, we were being told to mask up in public. No one knew what was going on and the inconsistent messaging coming from the White House didn’t help. Some of Adams’ message now about his former employer may not get the reception he is hoping for from the general public.

I wish his wife well in her her treatment. I hope she fully recovers.