India-born Devika Bhushan is California’s top doctor

Agra-born Bhushan, is the daughter of Indu Bhushan, who set up and steered India’s flagship Ayushman Bharat Mission for annual cashless hospitalisation cover of Rs 5 lakh for over 10 crore vulnerable families

India-born Devika Bhushan (35) was on Thursday, February 3, appointed California’s top doctor – Surgeon General – after Nadine Burke Harris,  the incumbent surgeon general resigned on Wednesday, following three years in the post, a report in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says

Agra-born Bhushan, is the daughter of Indu Bhushan, who set up and steered India’s flagship Ayushman Bharat Mission for annual cashless hospitalisation cover of Rs 5 lakh for over 10 crore vulnerable families.

Devika has done her undergraduate degree from Columbia University, MD at Harvard Medical School and completed a general paediatrics residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Bloomberg Children’s Center. 

Earlier the young doctor had served on Stanford’s faculty as a Clinical Instructor in the General Pediatrics division, where she taught pediatrics residents. She has written policy analyses on preventing gun violence, lead toxicity, and foster care legal implementation in the US.

Currently, she is Chief Health Officer at the Office of the California Surgeon General—a post created three years ago in January, 2019.

Bhusan leads the research and clinical implementation portfolios relating to the Office’s top priorities—ACEs and toxic stress, health equity, and early childhood development.

She was Editor-in-Chief and lead author of the first California Surgeon General’s report, entitled Roadmap for Resilience: The California Surgeon General’s Report on Adverse Childhood Experiences, Toxic Stress, and Health.

California is among a few US states to have the post of a surgeon general. While the US surgeon general office dates back a century, the post of state-level surgeon general was first established in Pennsylvania (which named it physician general in 1996). 

In 2003, Michigan created a state-level surgeon general’s post. Arkansas and Florida followed in 2007 and California in 2019.

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