HMS Professor Faces Senate Confirmation

Three months after President Barack Obama announced his decision to nominate Harvard Medical School instructor of medicine, Vivek H. Murthy ’98, for the position of U.S. Surgeon General, Murthy began the process of Senate confirmation last Tuesday.

If confirmed, Murthy will be the youngest individual to hold the position since its inception in 1870.

According to Jeffrey Levi, an executive director of the non-profit Trust for America's Health who knows Murthy personally, the professor’s initial confirmation hearing to lawmakers “seemed to go very well.”

Levi expects there to be a vote in Senate committee by the end of the month and a final Senate floor vote in the near future. He said that he feels optimistic about the upcoming votes.

“Under the new rules, [Murthy’s confirmation] only requires 51 [Senate] votes instead of the 60 that would have been needed to break a filibuster” Levi said. “I’m pretty confident that will ultimately happen.”

Levi is also looking forward to seeing changes in public health after Murthy takes hold of the reigns at the Surgeon General's office.

“I think it’s a very exciting nomination,” Levi said. “I think Dr. Murthy represents in a sense the vision for the future of public health, which is one that bridges what happens in the clinical setting with what happens in the community.”

Murthy’s qualifications for the position of “America’s Doctor” stem from his current work as a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, a Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate in Boston. Murthy also serves as president and co-founder of Doctors for America, a national organization of physicians that advocates for the Affordable Care Act and other health care reform policies advanced by the Obama administration.

According to at least one of Murthy’s colleagues at the Medical School, Murthy has been a standout since he first arrived in Cambridge.

Harvard Medical School professor Gerald B. Pier remembers first meeting Murthy during the summer after the Murthy’s junior year of high school, when he attended the Harvard Summer School Program and took Pier’s course on immunology.

“He stood out incredibly well because as a high school student, he got the highest grade in the class [and] had the highest score on the exam,” Pier said. “That was pretty impressive.”

—Staff writer Forrest K. Lewis can be reached at forrest.lewis@thecrimson.com.