President-elect Donald Trump nominated Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as her Surgeon General. Nesheiwat, when she was 13 years old, accidentally shot her father after she knocked over a handgun. Her father succumbed to the gunshot wound a day later. She would take this traumatic experience to become a doctor.
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"When I was 13 years old, I helplessly watched my dear father dying from an accident as blood was spurting everywhere," Nesheiwat wrote in her 2017 memoir, "Beyond the Stethoscope." "I couldn't save his life." She then said that this event led to her becoming a physician.
The New York Times obtained a police report that contains the then-13-year-old Nesheiwat's interaction with an officer. "I was in Father's bedroom at about 7:15 a.m. getting some scissors," she said at the time. "I opened the fishing tackle box and the whole thing tipped over. Something fell out of it and there was a loud noise." That "something" was a .380 handgun that went off, hitting Nesheiwat's father in the head.
Nesheiwat's father was rushed to an Orlando hospital, but he was pronounced dead just a day later. Officers labeled the incident as a "freak accident." However, Janette Nesheiwat was devastated. "The trauma of that moment clung to me like a relentless shadow, unraveling the fabric of my young life and leaving me in a perpetual state of devastation," she wrote in her book.
Overcoming Adversity
To strive despite the traumatic experience of her father's death, Nesheiwat began working at a fast-food restaurant when she turned 16. Furthermore, Nesheiwat's mother, Hayat Nesheiwat, began taking extra shifts as a pediatric nurse, to provide food to the table. Hayat successfully managed to turn her husband's death into a positive, according to Julia Nesheiwat, Janette's older sister. "As a family, we set our minds to that and it worked. We became strong," Julia said.
Janette Nesheiwat went on to become a physical. Julia Nesheiwat became Trump's homeland security advisor during his first presidential term. Their younger sister, Jaclyn Nesheiwat, became a fashion model and married Scott Stapp, while Daniel and Dina Nesheiwat, their other siblings, became lawyers.
On November 22, 2024, Donald Trump announced Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as her pick for Surgeon General of the United States. He labeled her a "fierce advocate and strong communicator for preventive medicine and public health."
When contacted about Nesheiwat's father, Brian Hughes, Trump's spokesman for his transition team, said that Jannete became a physician after her father's accidental death. "She became a physician to save lives, and that dedication to the lives of her fellow Americans is why President Trump nominated Dr. Nesheiwat to be our next Surgeon General. She and her family miss their father, and hope he's proud of them," Hughes stated.
