Murthy is President’s choice for next Surgeon General.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: President Barack Obama is expected to announce that he is nominating Indian American physician Dr. Vivek Murthy to be the next US Surgeon General, the highest medical position in the country.
If confirmed for the post, the 36 year-old Murthy would become the youngest Surgeon General since the position first began in 1871. In addition to being just the 19th Surgeon General in US history, he would also be the first Indian American to ever fill the position, seen by many as recognition by the US government of the indispensable role Indian Americans play in the US medical field.
Out of the roughly 850,000 physicians in the country, around 80,000 are of Indian origin, which comes out to 9.4%. Perhaps the most well-known Indian American physician is Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the chief medical correspondent for CNN. He was also under consideration for the Surgeon General position in 2009, when President Obama initially took office, but withdrew his name from consideration for personal reasons.
Murthy certainly has the resume to get the job. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, then went on to receive his M.D. from the Yale School of Medicine and his M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management. In 1995, he co-founded VISIONS Worldwide, a non-profit organization focused on HIV/AIDS education in India and the US, at which he served as President until 2000 and Chairman of the Board from then until 2003.
In 2007, he co-founded TrialNetworks (previously known as Epernicus), a “clinical trial optimization system” company, where he co-founder and Chairman of the Board. In 2009, he became the co-founder and president of Doctors for America, and two years later was appointed to serve as a member of the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health.
Currently, Murthy is a Hospitalist Attending Physician and Instructor in Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School. If confirmed for the Surgeon General post, he will succeed acting Surgeon General Boris Lushniak, who assumed the position in July, when Regina Benjamin resigned.
But Murthy’s confirmation may be easier said than done. Murthy will need the approval of the Republican-controlled Senate, which has been less-than-kind to the President in recent months over issues like immigration reform and especially Obamacare. The latter issue will almost certainly have a bearing on the appointment of the country’s leading spokesperson on healthcare policy.
If confirmed, however, Murthy will serve a four-year term in the Office of the Surgeon General.