Hiring Outside the Box

We always hear about "thinking outside the box." But what if that thinking leads us to hiring outside the box?

With the scandal at Walter Reed Medical Center the Army Surgeon General Resigned. The interim Surgeon General? Major General Gale S. Pollock. What is so outside the box on this hire?

She's not a doctor. She's a nurse.

Granted, she's an interim Surgeon General, but I still think it's got great potential. The Army definitely has problems with it's medical centers. Maybe the best way to fix it is to think differently--bring in a nurse who has different experiences and view points than doctors do.

The nursing blogosphere is, of course, ecstatic over this. Universal Health writes:

[N]urses are notorious for creativeness under fire, frugality, patient advocacy and stepping up to the plate when the odds are enormous. Nurses have brains, intestinal fortitude and can-do attitudes. General Pollock is an able leader, and she is now quite possibly the most publicly visible nurse in the U.S.

Have there been "out of the box" hires that you've seen? Did they work out wonderfully or fail miserably, or somewhere in the middle?