Who is Donald Trump’s Surgeon General pick, possibly cursed to work under RFK Jr.?

As hesitant as we still may be to say it, Donald Trump is the president-elect of the United States. The unnaturally orange Republican will be inaugurated as the 47th president on Jan. 20, taking over from the Democratic Party’s Joe Biden, after defeating Kamala Harris in November 2024’s presidential election.

Trump has been putting together his list of nominations to be part of his federal government since the day he won the election, with the likes of Jared Isaacman and Marco Rubio nominated as Administrator of NASA and Secretary of State, respectively. Rather alarmingly, he’s also responsible for choosing the individuals who’ll take up important medical positions under his “leadership.”

Raspy-voiced vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is Trump’s presumptive nominee for United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, former Florida Congressman Dave Weldon has been nominated as the next director of the CDC, and Marty Makary is Trump’s nominee to head the FDA as its commissioner. But who is Trump’s pick for the role of surgeon general?

Who is Dr. Janette Nesheiwat?

Born on Aug. 15, 1976, in Carmel, New York, 48-year-old Dr. Janette Nesheiwat is the physician who is Donald Trump’s nominee for United States surgeon general. Somewhat refreshingly, she’s not an anti-vaxxer and has actively urged parents to vaccinate their children. According to Stetson Magazine, she’s the daughter of Christian Jordanian immigrants, including her pediatric nurse mother, Hayat Nesheiwat. Per the Nashville Voyager, when she was 13, Nesheiwat accidentally knocked over a fishing tackle box with a handgun inside. The handgun went off, killing her father, Ziad “Ben” Nesheiwat. The tragedy motivated her to become a physician.

Nesheiwat’s early education included attending Umatilla High School in Florida and the University of South Florida, where she received a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 2000. After completing U.S. Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, she set her sights on medical school. She graduated from the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine in St. Maarten before completing the family medicine residency program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 2009.

Per Certification Matters, she is now a board-certified physician in family medicine who has practiced in Arkansas and New York and carried out international relief efforts in Haiti. Notably, in March 2020, the prominent Trump-supporting Fox News hired her to analyze and comment on the Coronavirus Pandemic from first-hand experiences as an on-screen medical contributor.

As per Oklahoma Voice, Trump wrote in his nomination for Nesheiwat that she is “a fierce advocate and strong communicator for preventive medicine and public health” who is “committed to ensuring that Americans have access to affordable, quality healthcare, and believes in empowering individuals to take charge of their health to live longer, healthier lives.”

Should the Republican-controlled Senate approve her nomination as the surgeon general, Neishewat will oversee 6,000 Public Health Service Corps members. In an interview with Ayesha Rascoe for NPR, Pien Huang told the host that Neishewat’s “firm advocacy for childhood vaccination might put her at odds with Kennedy, her possible future boss, who has questioned the safety of childhood vaccinations.” It remains to be seen if that will be the case, but it’ll undoubtedly be interesting to find out.