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Sanjay Gupta (born 23 October 1969) is an American neurosurgeon, medical reporter and author. He has been the chief medical correspondent of the television network CNN since 2001 while continuing to operate, and is one of the most recognised doctors in the United States.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Sanjay Gupta |
| Born | 23 October 1969, Novi, Michigan, United States |
| Age | 56 |
| Nationality | American |
| Indian roots | Parents emigrated from India in the 1960s |
| Education | University of Michigan (B.S.; M.D., 1993) |
| Occupation | Neurosurgeon, medical journalist, author |
| Positions | Chief medical correspondent, CNN; associate professor of neurosurgery, Emory University |
| Spouse | Rebecca Olson (m. 2004) |
| Children | 3 |
Early Life
He was born in Novi, a suburb of Detroit. His parents, Subhash and Damyanti Gupta, had come from India in the 1960s and both worked as engineers for the Ford Motor Company; his mother, who had fled Sindh as a child at Partition, is often described as the first woman engineer the company hired.
A grandfather’s stroke, when Sanjay was a teenager, turned his interest towards the brain.
Education
He entered an accelerated programme at the University of Michigan that combined a bachelor’s degree with medical school, and qualified as a doctor in 1993. He completed his residency in neurosurgery at the same university’s hospitals.
Career
White House Fellow
In 1997 he was chosen as a White House Fellow and worked as an adviser and speech-writer on health to the First Lady, Hillary Clinton.
Surgeon
He joined the faculty of Emory University in Atlanta and operates at Grady Memorial Hospital, the city’s main public hospital and trauma centre, specialising in injuries of the brain and spine.
CNN
He joined CNN in the summer of 2001, a few weeks before the attacks of 11 September, which he covered from New York.
- **Iraq, 2003:** travelling with a US Navy medical unit known as the Devil Docs, he was asked to operate when no other neurosurgeon was available, and performed five brain operations in a desert tent, one of them on an Iraqi child
- **Disasters:** he reported from the Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake of 2010, where he again operated, on a girl with a head injury aboard an American warship
- **Covid-19:** he was the network’s main explainer through the pandemic
He has won several Emmy awards.
Cannabis
In 2013 he publicly reversed his earlier opposition to the medical use of cannabis, apologising for having dismissed the evidence, in a documentary series called Weed.
The offer from Obama
In 2009 President Barack Obama asked him to become Surgeon General of the United States. He withdrew his name, saying he wanted to continue practising surgery and to spend time with his young family. The post later went to Vivek Murthy.
Books
- Chasing Life (2007) and Cheating Death (2009)
- Monday Mornings (2012), a novel about surgeons, made into a television series
- Keep Sharp (2021), on protecting the ageing brain
- World War C (2021), on the lessons of the pandemic
He also presents the podcast Chasing Life.
Personal Life
He married Rebecca Olson, a lawyer, in 2004 in a Hindu ceremony; they have three daughters and live in Atlanta.
Featured image: Sanjay Gupta in a photograph published in July 2020. Photo by Asealy77, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.