Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, is busy under normal circumstances but he's about to get crazy busy, anchoring his first film for HBO Monday _ "One Nation Under Stress" (9 p.m./8 p.m. Central) _ and a six-part CNN series launching April 13, "Chasing Life," based on his 2007 book of the same name.
Probably television's best-known medical reporter _ he also contributes to "60 Minutes" _ Gupta, a neurosurgeon with Grady Health in Atlanta, joined CNN in 2001. He subsequently embedded with the Navy's "Devil Docs," performing brain surgery on many grievously wounded soldiers in Iraq, and was later embedded with the Army's 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan in 2009. A Michigan native, he got his M.D. at the University of Michigan Medical School.
"One Nation Under Stress" is thoughtful, provocative and deep look at the causes of stress and its destructive consequences. It's also predicated on one sobering fact: American life expectancy is now shorter than all other major developed countries. For a few more thoughts about this vitally important subject, I recently spoke to Gupta. Excerpts from our phone interview have been edited and condensed for brevity.
