The Senate confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for U.S. surgeon general has been postponed after she went into labor shortly before the scheduled meeting, according to a Senate Health, Education Labor and Pension Committee spokesperson.

The postponement came hours before nominee Casey Means was set to appear virtually.

Means, 38, is a Stanford-educated physician and a New York Times bestselling author with a large online following. An ally of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Means has attracted influencer status in certain online wellness spaces, focusing on metabolic health and the prevention of chronic disease.

President Donald Trump announced she was his pick for surgeon general on May 7. Some of her positions have drawn criticism of her nomination for the office, including past comments in which she raised skepticism about vaccines, The New York Times reported.

Means graduated from Stanford Medical School and pursued a surgical residency as an otolaryngologist, often called an ENT doctor. However, she left the residency program in 2018, according to her LinkedIn profile. Her medical license expired in 2019.

She later founded Levels, a glucose-monitoring tech company.

Contributing: Savannah Kuchar, Kayla Jimenez, Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy of USA TODAY.

Kathryn Palmer is a politics reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Surgeon general hearing postponed after nominee Casey Means goes into labor

Reporting by Kathryn Palmer, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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