America
'America's Doctor' Vivek Murthy recounts 'improbable rise'
By
By Arun KumarWashington, April 23
Son of Indian immigrant
parents, Dr. Vivek Murthy says his rise to the position of "America's
Doctor" was improbable but he got where he was by standing on principle.
"As
I look around this arena, I am struck by a simple truth: by any
reasonable measure, I shouldn't be standing here," he said at his
ceremonial swearing in as America's 19th surgeon general Wednesday at
Fort Myer, Virginia. "My family was never supposed to have left our
ancestral village (of Hallegere in Karnataka's Mandya district). My
father is the son of a farmer in rural India.
"He was supposed to
have been a farmer, as was I," recalled Murthy, 37, as a crowd of
supporters that included Vice President Joe Biden watched.
"But
for my grandfather's insistence that his son get an education - even if
that meant going into debt - we might have never left that village to go
out in the world and - as my grandfather also insisted - start fixing
what needed fixing."
"We were not supposed to have become
Americans. My parents stopped in three other countries - including a
brutal dictatorship - on their journey to get here," said Murthy, who is
now the highest ranking Indian-American in the Obama Administration.
"They
saved up money and scrounged for information about job opportunities,
always knowing that America was the destination," he said.
"They
knew that here - more than any other place in the world - they would
not be limited because of who they were or where they came from.
"And
in Miami, they found a community of immigrants from all over the world
who continue to hold on to that vision of America as an article of
faith," said Murthy.
And even after being nominated for this job
by President Barack Obama, "I almost didn't get to be your Surgeon
General," he said alluding to the opposition of the powerful gun lobby
that left him cooling his heels for more than a year.
"Had it not
been for so many of you in this room - and thousands of dedicated
individuals that I have never even met - I would not be standing here.
We got here by standing on principle," said Murthy.
According to
the surgeon general's website, Murthy graduated from high school in
Miami and then received his bachelor's degree from Harvard.
From there, he earned his medical degree and master's in business adminisration at Yale University.
In
addition to practicing internal medicine at Brigham and Women's
Hospital, he in 2009 started a nonprofit, Doctors for America, composed
of thousands of doctors and medical students supporting Obama's
healthcare initiatives.
Biden too jabbed the Senate for the delay in confirming Murthy at his swearing-in ceremony Wednesday.
"Thankfully, the people that held up the nomination don't have to wait that long for a doctor's appointment," he said.
Murthy's
nomination was opposed by the National Rifle Association, which
publicised tweets where he called guns a "public health issue" and said
members of Congress were "scared of the NRA."
The Surgeon General
oversees the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (USPHS), an
elite group of over 6,700 uniformed officer public health professionals.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])