Dr Vivek Murthy, who is currently serving as the 21st surgeon general of the United States, is the first person in this position to have taken his oath on the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred Hindu scripture.
When he was first confirmed in 2014 under the Obama administration, he was, at 37, the youngest person to assume charge of the nation’s public health. He’s also the first person to have been confirmed twice, having been relieved of his post by Donald Trump, only to be sworn in by his successor. Today, he commands a uniformed service of more than 6,000 public health officers who work on issues as diverse as the opioid crisis, refugee resettlement, emergency preparedness and Ebola outbreaks.
There is much that sets Murthy apart from his predecessors, but one detail stands out: he’s a high-ranking government official who insists on the importance of care, compassion and deep listening. Love, he says, is the foundation of good policies and needs to inform the nation’s public health agenda.
