Leana Wen

press release:

Dr. Leana Wen is the Commissioner of Health for the City of Baltimore. An emergency physician and patient and community advocate, she leads the Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD), the oldest health department in the United States, formed in 1793. The author of the critically-acclaimed book When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests, Dr. Wen has given six popular TED and TEDMED talks on patient-centered care, public health leadership, and healthcare reform. Her TED talk on transparency in medicine has been viewed over 1.5 million times.

Dr. Wen has received recognition as Daily Record’s 100 Most Influential Marylanders and Maryland’s Leading Women; Baltimore Business Journal’s “40 under 40”, Baltimore Sun’s 25 Women to Watch, Modern Healthcare’s 12 Up-and-Comers, and Maryland American College of Emergency Physicians’ Public Servant of the Year. A Fellow of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine and Academy of Medicine, she has been a Visiting Professor for Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society and for Johns Hopkins Hospital. In 2016, Dr. Wen was honored to be the recipient of the American Public Health Association’s highest award for local public health work, the Milton and Ruth Roemer Award.

Dr. Wen received her medical training from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where she was a Clinical Fellow at Harvard Medical School. A Rhodes Scholar, she studied public policy and economic history at the University of Oxford. She has served as a consultant with the World Health Organization, Brookings Institution, and China Medical Board; an advisor to the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the Lown Institute; and as national president of the American Medical Student Association and American Academy of Emergency Medicine-Resident & Student Association. In 2005, she was appointed the U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services to serve on the Council on Graduate Medical Education, an advisory commission to Congress. In 2010, she served as Chair of the Young Professionals Council, a global leadership network of medical, nursing, and public health professionals.

In addition to her extensive scholarship in public health and patient safety, Dr. Wen has conducted international health systems research in Rwanda, D.R. Congo, Nigeria, South Africa, China, Singapore, Slovenia, and Denmark. She has been published over 100 articles including in The Lancet, JAMA and Health Affairs. She is regularly featured on National Public Radio, CNN, New York Times,Washington Post, and USA Today.

Please join WUD Distinguished Lecture Series for An Evening with Leana Wen. The doors to Shannon Hall will open at 7:00pm. The one hour lecture is to begin at 7:30pm, followed by a 30-minute Q&A. Beginning at 9:00pm, there will be a reception in the Sunset Lounge (across from the entrance to Shannon Hall). Sign language interpreters will be provided. If you need another accomodation to attend this event, please contact Megan Spletzer at spletzer@wisc.edu. All accomodation requests should be made no less than two weeks before the event. We will attempt to fulfill requests made after this date but cannot guarantee they will be met.