The St. Joseph County Board of Health voted 7-0 Monday to recommend physician Dr. Diana Purushotham as its next leader.
After graduating from the Chicago Medical School, Purushotham worked as a hospitalist at two of the nation’s most prestigious medical centers, Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic. In 2020 as the pandemic set in, she came to South Bend to join Unity Physicians Hospital. After a year, she moved to South Bend Clinic where she worked as a hospitalist and medical director.
Purushotham couldn’t attend the meeting because of a prior commitment.
The county council and commissioners next must approve and certify her as the county’s health officer. She would succeed Dr. Robert Einterz, who resigned in March, citing commissioners’ “harassment of the health department.”
Board of Health Vice-President Dr. Michele Migliore said she thinks Purushotham will be “very apolitical” and she’s optimistic that she’ll sail through the approval process.
“There’s nothing about her not to love and like,” Migliore said. “She’s very intelligent, very articulate, very thoughtful. People who know her love her, and we’re very, very lucky to have her.”
