It's common for senators to hire lawyers as aides. A few hire doctors. But with Win Froelich, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, found an aide who is both a doctor and a lawyer.
He is Hatch's physician adviser to the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, which oversees health law. As a doctor, Froelich is an expert in health. And as a lawyer, he is an expert in law.But the hectic, erratic hours and relatively low pay for professionals in Congress helped Froelich decide to join a private law firm in Washington, effective Dec. 1.
He's one of a growing number of highly trained aides who leave Congress because, in part, of relatively low wage ceilings. Rules hold aides' salaries below the $89,500 a year that members of Congress make. Many professionals could earn much more in the high-wage and high-cost-of-living area around Washington.
"I probably lost $60,000 a year working in Congress from what I could have made as a practicing physician," Froelich said. "But the experience has been so tremendous that I would have done it for nothing. But it's time to move on."
Working in Congress was the type of job that Froelich had dreamed of and for which he became both a doctor and lawyer.
"The thing that interested me most about medicine was not how to treat a patient. I can look that up in a book - and there is a right answer," Froelich said. "I'm really interested in legal, moral and ethical problems that have no right or wrong answer.
"Things like how to pay for medical care, who has access to it, and when do you stop providing care and who makes that decision," he said. "It seemed law was the practical application of morals and ethics. A legal degree gives me the power to argue my beliefs."
And with Hatch, he had direct influence on the laws guiding such ethical and moral decisions. "And he is responsible for more health-care legislation passed this decade than any other member of Congress."
Froelich, who never lived in Utah, became acquainted with Hatch because another former Hatch aide, David Sundwall - a former medical professor at the University of Utah - knew Froelich's parents. They moved to Utah for medical jobs.
Froelich's mother, Marian Bishop, is chaiwoman of the Family and Community Medicine Department at the U. His father, Robert Froelich, is a psychiatrist at the Veteran's Hospital in Salt Lake City.
Hatch hired Froelich in 1985 and allowed him to attend law school part-time at Georgetown University until he completed his law degree last year. Froelich also spends two or three weekends a month working in hospital emergency rooms to keep his medical skills sharp.
He helped Hatch work on such issues as tobacco legislation, which led to smoking bans on short domestic airline flights, warning labels on smokeless tobacco and TV ad bans on smokeless tobacco.
Hatch also was largely responsible for AIDS legislation to increase research and public education. Froelich said Hatch skillfully formed solid health policy while steering to allay fears of conservatives who worried AIDS bills might promote or condone homosexuality.
Froelich said he has also watched Hatch try to resolve tough ethical questions by not just having Congress attempt a solution; rather he tries to increase public knowledge of an ethical problem, let the public debate the issues and then have Congress attempt legislation to mirror public sentiment.
"It's been a great education for me. Orrin has taught me a lot," Froelich said.
But he plans to get married in November, and said he would rather have a job with more regular hours.
"I'll put in as many hours - but they will be more predictable. Now, I often can't say at 5 p.m. whether I will be home at 7 p.m. - let alone trying to say that three or four days in advance."
Froelich adds, "It's also no secret that I will be making a lot more money."
Still, he said he has enjoyed working with Hatch, whom he describes as a genuinely nice person who is concerned about his staffers.
"Orrin is not like some members who publicly berate their staff members, blame them for something that wasn't their fault or ask the impossible of them. He would never do that."