Health policy advocate tapped as new surgeon general

President Barack Obama will nominate Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., M.B.A., founder and president of Doctors for America, a group that advocated for the Affordable Care Act before it was passed in 2010, as surgeon general, according to a White House announcement. Murthy, 36, a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, both in Boston, will replace Regina Benjamin, M.D., M.B.A., who left the post in July to return to work at a clinic she founded in Bayou La Batre, Ala., the New York Times reports. Rear Admiral Boris D. Lushniak, M.D., M.P.H., has served as acting surgeon general since her departure. Murthy received his medical degree and M.B.A. from Yale, and earned a bachelor's degree in biochemical sciences from Harvard. He is also one of the founders of Visions, a nonprofit AIDS and HIV education group, and has been both its president and its chairman of the board. His nomination is subject to Senate approval. Article