Dr. Pemmasani Chandra Sekhar: From Doctor to First-Time MP and Cabinet Minister

The minister hails from Burripalem of Tenali mandal, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh, and is married to Dr Sriratna Koneru. They have two children. He is 48. His father, Sambasiva Rao, from an agrarian family moved to Narasaraopet town for hotel business and got involved in the Telugu Desam party activities since its inception. He was affectionately called Madhuri Sambaiah by many in Narasaraopet town.

Dr Cjhandra Shekhar studied at the Narasaraopeta Municipal School till SSC and did his intermediate in Guntur. Though he studied in a Telugu medium government school, he secured the 27th rank among 60,000 students, who appeared for the EAMCET exam in 1933 – 94. He got his MBBS degree from Osmania Medical College. After that, he went to the US for further studies. He completed his post-graduation and internal medicine at Geisinger Medical Centre in Pennsylvania. He scored the highest marks in the PG course.

Later, Dr Chandra Sekhar served as professor and physician at Sinai Hospital at Johns Hopkins University for five years. He completed his medical licensing exam in the US at age 25.

To help other students, Dr Chandra Sekhar compiled his training material into a book and made it available to the students who go to the US for the Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE).

Dr Chandra Shekhar started an online training platform, namely UWorld, for medical students attending medical licensing exams in the US. Through this, he earned fame and goodwill in the US. Now, the platform provides training in other areas, such as nursing, pharmacy, finance, LAW, commerce and accounting, a citation said.