Congratulations to Dr. Vivek Murthy, the new Surgeon General of the United States of America.

It's a great moment of  pride for us, the Indian Americans. Dr. Murthy is one of our own, who has earned the highest honor of becoming the Surgeon General of the United States.

Vivek Hallegere Murthy is the 19th Surgeon General of the United States of America. Murthy is co-founder of Doctors for America and succeeded Acting Surgeon General Boris D.

It was not an easy appointment; he was opposed by the Republicans for his stance on Gun control and national health care. But the strength of his qualifications and strong support from President Obama got him the job of the highest Medical Post in America.    Thanks to the Senate Majority leader Harry Reid in getting the Senate to approve the nomination with a 53 to 46 vote. We have to work the 43 Republican Senators who opposed the nomination.

This gives us three high profile Indians in American politics – 2 State Governors Bobby Jindal and Niki Haley, and the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. We have several more and hope someone will compile the list.

The American Association of Physicians from India has also worked hard in lobbying for his nomination. Our own Sante Chary, who works with the Association as a consultant has made several rounds in the Senate. Sante also received the Pluralist Award in the 16th Annual Thanksgiving Celebrations for "connecting the international leaders" by America Together Foundation.  
Congratulations Dr. Murthy.

I will be visiting Washington DC frequently to conduct workshops and teach Pluralism, and as a social scientist, that would be my contribution to the fabric of America, and a commitment to build a cohesive America where no American has to live with apprehension, discomfort or fear of the other. 

Mike Ghouse
www.TheGhouseDiary.com
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From different sources

Vivek Hallegere Murthy was born to a Kannada (ವಿವೇಕ ಮೂರ್ತಿ) speaking family; his parents are originally from Karnataka, India. He was born in Huddersfield, England, but his family relocated to Miami, Florida when he was three years old.[4] Murthy completed his early education in Miami, graduating as valedictorian fromMiami Palmetto Senior High School in 1994.[5] He then attended college atHarvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in three years with a bachelors degree in Biochemical Sciences.[5] Murthy received an MDfrom Yale School of Medicine and an MBA in Health Care Management fromYale School of Management in 2003, where he was a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow.[6][7] He completed his residency in Internal Medicine in 2006 from Brigham and Women's Hospital.[8]

Career

Murthy is the Surgeon General of the United States. Before his confirmation, he was a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and a Hospitalist Attending Physician and Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.[9] He is also a founder and president of Doctors for America, a group of 15,000 physicians and medical students supporting comprehensive health reform.[10][11] He has managed staff and hundreds of volunteers, developed and executed strategic plans and national and local initiatives around coverage and prevention. He has also directed fundraising, managed budgets, built a broad array of partnerships with community-based organizations across the country. In 2011, Murthy was appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama to serve on the U.S. Presidential Advisory Council on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.[9] The group advises the National Prevention Council on developing strategies and partnerships to advance the nation's health.[12]

He is co-founder and chairman of TrialNetworks, a cloud-based Clinical Trial Optimization System for pharmaceutical andbiotechnology trials that improves the quality and efficiency of clinical trials to bring new drugs to market faster and more safely.[13][14] He founded the company as Epernicus in 2008 to originally be a collaborative networking web platform for scientists to boost research productivity.[15]

He created and served as President and then Chairman of VISIONS, a non-profit organization focused on HIV/AIDS education in the US and India. During his 8 year tenure as head of the organization, VISIONS established 10 chapters with hundreds of volunteers in both countries and impacted over 45,000 youth through direct education programs. He managed volunteers spread across two countries, directed fundraising and program evaluation efforts, and oversaw partnerships.

Murthy has also led and managed medical care teams at Brigham and Women's Hospital for over a decade. He has trained hundreds of medical students and residents and has cared for thousands of patients as an internal medicine physician. He also continues to practice medicine.

Surgeon General of the United States[edit]

In November 2013, Murthy was nominated by President Obama for the post of United States Surgeon General. His nomination met some initial resistance in the Senate by both Democrats and Republicans. The most opposition came from the National Rifle Association regarding previous comments Dr. Murthy made citing gun violence as a threat to public health.[16] However, Murthy said in his confirmation hearings he would not use the office of Surgeon General as a bully pulpit for gun control.[17][18]

Murthy's nomination received broad support from over 100 medical and public health organizations in the U.S., including the American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, and the American Diabetes Association.[19] He also received the endorsements of two former Surgeons General, Dr. David Satcher and Dr. Regina Benjamin. However, another former Surgeon General, Dr. Richard Carmonaopposed the appointment based on the lack of Dr. Murthy's experience in public health and medicine in general.

Nonetheless, Murthy's appointment as Surgeon General was approved on December 15, 2014, in a 51-43 vote.[20]Following his confirmation, Murthy was automatically commissioned as a Vice Admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, of which the Surgeon General is the day to day head.

Praying for Nelson Mandela; the symbol of freedom

URL - http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2013/06/praying-for-nelson-mandela-symbol-of.html

Sunday, February 11, 1990 was a heavy day for me, I was glued to the TV to watch the historical event happening in my life time; the release of Nelson Mandela from the South African Prison. I choked, and I cried. And again, today is a heavy day for me. I am anxious about his health. He is in his last days of his life, the president of South Africa has given up on Medicine and counting on blessings and prayers from the people around the world. May God keep his wisdom and the flame of freedom alive? 

Praying for him in essence is rekindling the spirit of freedom within us.

Freedom is the most cherished value for me, and to see freedom at last for a man in an apartheid nation was worth crying. A new tone of democracy was going to be set in the world for the first time in the predominantly Black African Nation.

I am also kicking myself – two weeks ago, my friend Sante Chary and I briefly talked about jumping in the plane and go visit Nelson Mandela, we had to go through a lot of rig morale to see him, we dropped the idea. Sante has a distinction among many things – to have an envelope signed by nearly eight US Presidents and several world leaders. He is a go getter and gets things done. Sante is one of the few friends where he and I have nothing to trade, nothing to gain, but just wish and support each other in our endeavors. I like this guy!

Can you imagine the power Mandela held? He shook the empire, they could have easily killed or poisoned him, but they did not have the guts to do that. What made Gandhi, Mandela, and MLK successful?

None of them had anything to gain, all they wanted was justice and harmony in the society, and that was their drive, when you become unselfish, you can do a lot of good to the world.  It begins with learning to respect the otherness of other and accepting the God given uniqueness of each one of us, then conflicts fade and solutions emerge.

Nelson Mandela is one of my mentors.  Some of the other joy-teary moments that I can recall are - release of Mandela, fall of the Berlin wall, Obama's election night,  Peace treaty between Israeli and Egypt, Peace between Ireland and England, Aung San Su Kyii’s release and Freedom at last for the Egyptian people. 

What made these men and women unique and powerful? They were free from the pettiness and all embracing and affectionate like the spiritual Master of all religions.  Several things were common to them; among them are:

1) No wall between them and another soul
2) No religious and political boundaries for them
3) No preference when it came to serving another human
4) The good they did, benefited larger humanity than self
5)  Justness was a paramount value for them
6) No bone of prejudice in them.
7) Their world is the same size as God's world.  

Here is information about him at Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes his work through many links.