Sanjay Gupta

For the Bollywood director of the same name see Sanjay Gupta (Director)

Sanjay Gupta (Hindi: संजय गुप्ता), born 23 October 1969, is a second-generation Indian-American physician and a contributing CNN chief health correspondent based in Atlanta, Georgia. An Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Emory University and associate chief of the neurosurgery service at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, he is also a frequent guest on the news program Anderson Cooper 360°. "Charity Hospital", won a 2006 Emmy Award for Outstanding Feature Story in a Regularly Scheduled Newscast. From 1997 to 1998 he served as one of fifteen White House Fellows, primarily as an advisor to Hillary Clinton. Gupta currently publishes a column in TIME magazine. He is also host of House Call with Dr Sanjay Gupta. His book Chasing Life was a New York Times and National Best Seller^{[citation needed]}.

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Background

Gupta grew up in Novi, Michigan, and received both his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He completed his residency in neurological surgery within the University of Michigan Health System. His father and mother moved from India to Michigan to work as engineers at the Ford Dearborn Plant in the 1960s.

In 2003, Gupta traveled to Iraq to cover the medical aspects of 2003 invasion of Iraq. While in Iraq, Gupta performed emergency surgery on both U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. Gupta was embedded with a Marine medical unit at the time. A Marine named Jesus Vidana suffered a severe head injury and the Marines asked for Gupta's assistance because of his background in neurosurgery. Vidana survived and was sent back to the United States for rehabilitation. ^[1] Gupta was named one of the Sexiest Men of 2003 by People magazine.

In December of 2006, CBS News President Sean McManus negotiated a deal with CNN that will have Gupta file up to 10 reports a year for "The Evening News With Katie Couric" and "60 minutes" while remaining CNN’s chief medical correspondent and associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital.

Medical practice

Gupta specializes in all facets of neurosurgical care with a strong interest in complicated spine, trauma and 3-D image guided operations^{[citation needed]}. He has recently had articles published in the Journal of Neurosurgery and Neurosurgical Focus on percutaneous pedicle screw placement^{[citation needed]}. He has also published on brain tumors and spinal cord abnormalities^{[citation needed]}.

Controversies

Battlefield Controversy

While in Iraq, Gupta was asked to perform brain surgery on five different patients, including Jesus Vidana, a Marine who had been twice pronounced dead on the battlefield.^[2] Jesus survived the injuries and now lives in Southern California. Gupta was criticized upon his return and many, including Bob Steele of the Poynter Institute, thought Gupta crossed the line when doffing his journalism cap for a surgeon's cap. Gupta was quoted in Newsweek magazine as saying "medically and morally, it was the right thing to do."

Michael Moore controversy

A July 9, 2007 broadcast of CNN's The Situation Room aired a "fact check" segment by Gupta on Michael Moore's 2007 film Sicko in which Gupta stated that Moore had "fudged facts".^[3] Immediately following the segment, Moore was interviewed live on CNN by Wolf Blitzer. Moore said that Gupta's report was inaccurate and biased, and later posted a detailed response on his website.^[4] Moore accused CNN and Gupta of being biased in favor of the drug industry because most of the sponsors for their medical coverage, including Gupta's reports, were drug companies. On July 10, 2007 Gupta debated Moore on Larry King Live, and on the 15th CNN released a statement in response to Michael Moore's rebuttal. In it, they apologized for an error in their on-air report, having stated that in the film Moore reported Cuba spends $25 per person for health care when the film actually gave that number as $251. CNN blamed this on a transcription error. CNN defended the rest of Gupta's report and issued a point-by-point response to Moore's response in which CNN contended that Moore's comparison of data from different sources in different years was in effect "cherry picking" results, at the cost of statistical accuracy.^[5] CNN also admitted that, in his debate with Moore, Gupta had afterwards committed a second error, mistakenly contesting Moore's observation that Gupta's one on-air expert was now associated with a Republican-linked think tank rather than a university (a fact which the chyron on Gupta's original report had stated correctly).^[6][7][8]

Merck Gardasil controversy

A July 25, 2007 article on the left-wing counterpunch.org criticized Gupta for publicly backing the drug Gardasil (a cervical cancer vaccine) while at the same time being host of a television show that is sponsored by the manufacturer, Merck. Gupta said "As a doctor, and parent, I would recommend the vaccine for my daughters. I feel the ability to protect them in any way, including from cancer, is my primary obligation." Turner Private Network's television show "AccentHealth" is partially underwritten by Merck.^[9]

Other TV Works

On October 14, 2007, Gupta guest-hosted a health episode of CBS News Sunday Morning as its regular host, Charles Osgood, was on vacation.

References