Dr Vivek Murthy

Some Lesser Known Facts About Dr. Vivek Murthy

• Vivek Murthy, a Harvard and Yale alumnus, is an American medical practitioner and entrepreneur, who served as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States from December 2014 to April 2017.

• Vivek Murthy comes from a humble farming background. His father, who was also a medical practitioner, came to the USA along with his family in 1980 after spending some years in the UK.
  

  

  

• Dr. Murthy’s commitment towards the healthcare of people began early in his life. In 1995, as an 18-years-old freshman at Harvard, he along with his sister, Rashmi, founded Visions Worldwide, a US-based non-profit organization that developed HIV/AIDS education and empowerment programs with the primary aim of spreading awareness about the disease in different parts of India. For Vivek, who wanted to bring a positive change in the world through his services, starting a noble organization like Vision Worldwide was really enthusiastic. Talking about it, he said,
  

  I felt this sense of excitement and energy flowing into me. It was one of those moments when I felt like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do in the world.”

• Later, in 1997, Dr. Murthy co-founded the Swasthya project, a rural community health project in Karnataka’s Sringeri village to train women to be health providers and educators.

• In 2008, Murthy co-founded a software technology company called TrialNetworks, a networking web research collaboration platform for scientists around the world to boost their research productivity. The platform is still helping research studies around the world and is playing a role in bringing new drugs to the market.

• Early on in life, Vivek was given a message by his parents and others around him that government is not the place he should work if he desires to bring a positive change to the world. Coming up from a place like India, where politics often have had a high level of corruption in it, his parents thought that working in government service might erode Vivek’s values. However, with the passage of time and experiences in life, his thinking about working with the government changed.

• In 2008, one of his physician friends took him to a meeting where a bunch of people involved with presidential campaigns were talking about the healthcare infrastructure of the USA. Listening to them, Murthy realized that people in politics who were to serve the nation lacked proper healthcare knowledge, and there is a need for an organization to bridge the gap between policymakers and healthcare professionals. Dr. Murthy brought doctors from all the 50 states of the USA and founded a nonprofit organization, “Doctors For America”, which developed into a powerful force in developing effective and scientifically driven policies at the local, state, and federal levels. This cross-functional organization of physicians and medical students also played a vital role in developing the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) that was enacted in 2010. Till today, the organization continues to guide policymakers of the USA in building up high quality and affordable health care system for the citizens of the US.

• In December 2014, Dr. Vivek Murthy was named as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States. On April 22, 2015, he took an oath on the Bhagavad Gita (a holy scripture of the Hindus) as the 19th Surgeon General of the USA. He was the youngest and first Indian-American surgeon general in America to be appointed for this post.

  

• As the Surgeon General of the USA, he took actions to tackle the USA’s most urgent public health issues and also provided Americans with pioneer scientific knowledge on how to improve their health and bring down the risk of illness. He was the first Surgeon General of the USA to have presented the latest scientific data on alcohol and drug addiction and called the nation to see these addictions as a chronic illness and not a moralistic failing. He published the first federal report on e-cigarettes, emphasizing the health risks of smoking e-cigarette use for youth. These were some highlights of his work.

• In April 2017, in Donald Trump’s administration, Vivek Murthy was relieved from his duty as the Surgeon General of the United States of America. Even after his departure, he continued to spread awareness about public health issues such as mental illness, gun violence, and obesity.

• Dr. Murthy has devoted his attention to addressing the issues of loneliness and isolation in society. In 2020, he penned his first book titled “Together: The Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World,” based on the importance of social connection to counter loneliness.
  

• In November 2020, former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy was named co-chair of the Joe Biden’s COVID-19 task-force. Dr. Murthy leads the team of health officials along with two other co-chairs to coordinate and oversee the administration’s efforts to monitor, prevent, contain, and mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

• Dr. Murthy lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, Dr. Alice Chen.

• Dr. Murthy’s diet includes unflavored almond milk, raw carrots, and high-protein grains. Along with this, the daily practice of yoga also reflects his healthy lifestyle.