Dr. Vivek Murthy
Surgeon General
Vivek Hallegere Murthy was born in July 1977 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England. The family moved to Miami, Florida, when he was three years old. He graduated from Harvard University with an undergraduate degree in biochemical sciences. He earned an MD from Yale School of Medicine and an MBA from Yale School of Management. He completed his internal medicine residency at Bingham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
He founded and was president of Doctors for America, a group of more than 15,000 physicians and medical students. He was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the Presidential Advisory Council on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health within the Department of Health and Human Services.
Murthy also co-founded and chaired TrialNetworks, a cloud-based Clinical Trial Optimization System for pharmaceutical and biotechnology trials.
In November 2013, he was nominated by President Obama for the post of United States Surgeon General. He was approved by the Senate a year later. President Joe Biden nominated Murthy for Surgeon General the second time and the Senate confirmed him in March 2021.
Murthy is married to Alice Chen, and they have two children.
In the News…
In his first advisory, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said COVID-19 “misinformation is an urgent threat to public health.” He said that “health misinformation” sometimes puts lives at risk, prolonging the pandemic. He called for a war against the “health misinformation.”
“COVID has really brought into sharp focus the full extent of damage that health misinformation is doing,” the surgeon general said.
“Misinformation tends to flourish in environments of significant societal division, animosity, and distrust,” his advisory states. “Distrust of the health care system due to experiences with racism and other inequities may make it easier for misinformation to spread in some communities. Growing polarization, including in the political sphere, may also contribute to the spread of misinformation.”
Surgeon General Murthy also said, “Health misinformation is an urgent threat to public health. It can cause confusion, sow mistrust, and undermine public health efforts, including our ongoing work to end the COVID-19 pandemic. As Surgeon General, my job is to help people stay safe and healthy, and without limiting the spread of health misinformation, American lives are at risk… tackling this challenge will require an all-of-society approach, but it is critical for the long-term health of our nation.”
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Surgeon General Murthy today? You can let him know at:
The Honorable Dr. Vivek Murthy
Surgeon General
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Ave SW
Washington, DC 20201
