Dr. Gupta is the multiple Emmy® award-winning chief medical correspondent for CNN. Dr. Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon, plays an integral role in CNN’s reporting on health and medical news for all of CNN’s shows domestically and internationally and contributes to CNN.com. His medical training and public health policy experience distinguishes his reporting from war zones and natural disasters, as well as on a range of medical and scientific topics, including the recent Ebola outbreak, brain injury, disaster recovery, health care reform, fitness, military medicine and HIV/AIDS. Additionally, Dr. Gupta is the host of Vital Signs for CNN International and Accent Health for Turner Private Networks.
Dr. Gupta joined CNN in the summer of 2001. He reported from New York following the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. In 2003, he embedded with the US Navy’s “Devil Docs” medical unit, reporting from Iraq and Kuwait as the unit traveled to Baghdad. He provided live coverage of the first operation performed during the war and performed life-saving brain surgery five times himself in a desert operating room. In 2009, he embedded with the US Army’s 82nd Airborne, accompanying them on life-saving rescue missions in Afghanistan.
Dr. Gupta’s passion for inspiring Americans to lead healthier, more active lives led him to launch “Fit Nation,” CNN’s multi-platform anti-obesity initiative. In 2009, “Fit Nation” followed the progress of Gupta and six CNN viewers as they inspired each other while training for a triathlon.
In addition to his work for CNN, Dr. Gupta also contributes to the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes and has authored three New York Times best-selling books, Chasing Life (2007), Cheating Death (2009) and Monday Mornings (2012) and is a member of the staff and faculty at the Emory University School of Medicine.
He is associate chief of neurosurgery at Grady Memorial Hospital and regularly performs surgery at Emory University and Grady hospitals. He holds memberships in the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the Council on Foreign Relations. He serves as a diplomate of the American Board of Neurosurgery and is a certified medical investigator.
Dr. Gupta completed his neurosurgical fellowship at the Semmes Murphey Clinic and residency at the University of Michigan Medical Center. In 1997, he was selected as a White House Fellow, serving as a special advisor to First Lady Hillary Clinton. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and a doctorate of medicine from the University of Michigan Medical School.