Page 22 - Lauren Lolo Spencer Issue

on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health, advising on strategies and partnerships to advance the nation’s health through prevention mea- sures. In November 2013, Murthy was nominated by President Obama to assume the post of US Surgeon General, the nation’s top doctor and operational head of the US Public Health Service. Murthy’s nomination received the public support of more than 100 US med- ical and public health organizations, and the endorse- ment of two prior surgeons general.
where I went in a different direction. I got really inter- ested in history and in English literature and economics. I was thinking maybe I would do something in one of those three fields. It was my work in HIV when I was in college—my sister and I built a nonprofit organization that focused on HIV education in India at the time and later in the US—that brought me back to health and to medicine, because I realized how much I really did want to be a part of improving people’s health and learning about their lives in the process.
Murthy recently sat down with ABILITY Magazine’s Chet Cooper and Gillian Friedman, MD, to discuss his route to discovering the scope and significance of lone- liness, as well as how we can combat it.
Cooper: What does your sister do? Is she also a doctor?
Chet Cooper: Did you always know you wanted to be a doctor?
Murthy: She is, yes. She’s a family medicine doctor in Miami. In fact, she and my dad practice together. He also does family medicine. Some years ago they wanted me to move to Miami and to practice with them so we could be a family family practice, you know? I actually applied for a medical license in Florida and I was think- ing about it seriously. It was right around that time that the White House called me and asked me if I wanted to be considered for the position of Surgeon General, and I ended up going down a very different path. Had it not been for this job, I could be in Miami right now practic- ing medicine with my dad and sister.
Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy: My parents are doc- tors and had a private practice. As a kid I would spend a lot of time there, greeting patients as they came, sorting papers, cleaning the office. I really fell in love with what they were doing, which was building beautiful relationships with patients. And even though I was too young to understand the science of what was happening, I did understand the humanity that the patients were experiencing, and that my parents also benefitted from the beautiful connections they were creating. So that inspired me to go into medicine.
Cooper: So the Zoom background would be different from what I’m seeing now, more of a palm tree setting?
But then there was a phase for about five or six years
Murthy: (laughs) That’s right! I’d be on the beach, perhaps. Cooper: I would love to continue this—you’re very
22 ABILITY