Dr. Vivek Murthy, From the Heart

Welcome to Beyond the Page: The Best of the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. Over the past 25 years, SVWC has become the gold standard of American literary festivals, bringing together contemporary writing’s brightest stars for their view of the world through a literary lens.

During his tenure as the Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy became, in effect, our national healer. In a soft but strong voice, he spoke about the country’s maladies like addiction, depression, and violence, and he made the passionate case that loneliness was the contributor to many of those ills, including our over-dependence on social media. That message is at the heart of his book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection. In this episode and in conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Andrea Elliott, Dr. Murthy talks about the book, about his own bouts of loneliness, and how we can each learn to be a healer in our own lives.

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