The youngest in history and first US surgeon general of Indian descent, Murthy, 37, faced stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association when President Barack Obama nominated him in November 2013.
The uncertainty ended after the Senate finally confirmed his nomination 51 to 43 on Tuesday.
Democrats are lauding the passage of his confirmation as a result of this weekend’s congressional maneuvering. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas kept his colleagues in the capitol in a Senate session to get a vote on the president’s executive action on immigration.
The move allowed Democrats to pass several procedural barriers in Murthy’s nomination process.
Murthy was intended to be confirmed earlier this year, but Republicans and the NRA fiercely opposed his nomination after he signed a letter that called on stricter gun control policies during the Newtown, Connecticut school shootings.
The letter that was sent to Congress last year advocates for politicians to take a stronger stance against gun violence. It proposed to gun control deaths by half in 2020. The proposal would require banning assault weapons, tightening safety regulations, funding research on gun violence and banning laws that prohibit physicians from discussing gun safety with patients.
Murthy also publicly made his position against gun lobbying known in his Twitter account in October 2012 when he called it an issue of public health.
— Vivek Murthy (@vivek_murthy) October 17, 2012
Republicans criticized his nomination as a political one. Murthy founded a pro-Affordable Care Act group known as Doctors for America. It was formerly known as Doctors for Obama. The organization intends to improve health-care access with 16,000 doctors and medical students.
Murthy’s experience also came under question.
Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell was quick to suggest the White House could have chosen other candidates that have experience “managing difficult health crises.”
Born to South Indian immigrant parents in England, Murthy is no stranger to medicine. He grew up in Miami where his father was a family practitioner. Murthy spent his time in his father’s clinic where he fostered an appreciation for medicine and science.
Murthy graduated magna cum laude at Harvard University in three years. He then obtained a medical and business degree at Yale.
The Brigham and Women’s Hospital physician has kept busy co-founding several non-profit organizations including VISIONS Worldwide Inc, which is devoted to AIDS education in India. He also created TrialNetworks, a system that improves clinical trials to speed up the marketing and safety of new drugs.
Murthy stressed that as surgeon general he would address other U.S. health problems in February of this year during a Senate nominating committee hearing.
If nominated, Murthy said he would “marshal partnerships across the country to address the epidemics of obesity and tobacco-related disease, to reduce the crippling stigma of mental illness, to roll back the resurgence of vaccine preventable disease.”
The president praised his confirmation as an important step in combating the worldwide health epidemic of Ebola.
"As 'America's Doctor,' Vivek will hit the ground running to make sure every American has the information they need to keep themselves and their families safe,” Obama said in a statement. “He'll bring his lifetime of experience promoting public health to bear on priorities ranging from stopping new diseases to helping our kids grow up healthy and strong."
