Washington, Jan 19 (IANS) Indian American Sanjay Gupta, who is CNN's chief medical correspondent and currently covering the Haiti quake, donned the neuorsurgeon's garb to carry out an emergency brain surgery on a young victim on board a carrier docked off the Haiti coast.

Gupta operated upon the 12-year-old girl aboard the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, a CNN report said Tuesday.

A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti last Tuesday, killing tens of thousands of people.

In his report after the operation, Gupta said: 'They had been watching our coverage and realised that I was in country.'

'Carrier flew out a helicopter for me and I boarded that helicopter and went to the carrier ship. A 12-year-old girl who had a piece of shrapnel that had gone through her skull and she did need emergent surgery.'

'Gratified that she is doing very well,' he added.

Gupta was considered by President Barack Obama for the post of surgeon general but withdrew his name in March last year due to family and career reasons.

In 2003, Gupta was embedded with the US Navy's 'Devil Docs' medical unit and reported from Iraq and Kuwait from points along the unit's travel to Baghdad. He also provided live coverage from a desert operating room of the first operation performed during the US-led war with Iraq, performing life-saving brain surgery five times himself.

In 2003, Gupta was named one of People magazine's 'Sexiest Men Alive' and a 'pop culture icon' by USA Today.

Gupta received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and a doctorate of medicine from the University of Michigan Medical School.