David Shulkin Tapped by Trump as Secretary of Veteran Affairs
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — Dr. David Shulkin, the undersecretary for health at the Department of Veterans Affairs, has been appointed secretary of veteran affairs by President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump announced Shulkin’s Cabinet appointment on Wednesday during a news conference, his first meeting with reporters since July.
Shulkin is the first Trump holdover from the administration of President Barack Obama. He was named undersecretary by Obama in 2015.
“I have no doubt Dr. Shulkin will be able to lead the turnaround our Department of Veterans Affairs needs,” Trump said in a statement. “His sole mandate will be to serve our veterans and restore the level of care we owe to our brave men and women in the military. Sadly our great veterans have not gotten the level of care they deserve, but Dr. Shulkin has the experience and the vision to ensure we will meet the healthcare needs of every veteran.”
Trump called Shulkin “an incredibly gifted doctor.”
Shulkin has served in several chief executive roles, including as president of hospitals, notably Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. He also has held numerous physician leadership roles, including as chief medical officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and academic positions, including as chairman of medicine and vice dean at the Drexel University School of Medicine.
As an entrepreneur, Shulkin founded and served as the chairman and CEO of DoctorQuality, one of the first consumer-oriented sources of information for quality and safety in health care.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has been under fire for several years for inadequate care, including the failure to provide appointments in a timely fashion.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
