Leana Wen

Leana Sheryle Wen
Born	(1983-01-27) January 27, 1983 Shanghai, China
Nationality	American
Education	MD, MSc
Alma mater	California State University, Los Angeles; Washington University
Occupation	Physician, health commissioner, author
Notable work	When Doctors Don't Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests
Spouse(s)	Sebastian Walker (m. 2012)
Website	www.drleanawen.com

Leana Sheryle Wen (born January 27, 1983), is a physician, public health advocate, and the health commissioner of Baltimore City, Maryland, USA. She is the author of the book When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests. She previously practiced as an emergency physician at the George Washington University, where she served as a professor in the School of Medicine & Health Sciences and professor in health policy at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. Prior to this, she was an emergency physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. She also served as the national president of the American Medical Student Association and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine/Resident and Student Association.

Early life and education

Born in Shanghai, China on January 27, 1983, to Ying Sandy Zhang and Xiaolu Wen, Leana Sheryle Wen moved with her parents to the U.S. when she was eight years old and grew up in Compton and East Los Angeles, California. Her mother was an elementary school teacher before she died from breast cancer in 2010 and her father is retired from his job as a technology manager for The Chinese Daily News in Los Angeles.

Wen attended California State University, Los Angeles through their early college entrance program and in 2001, she graduated summa cum laude at age 18 with a bachelor's degree in biochemistry. She received a Doctor of Medicine from Washington University School of Medicine and has two master's degrees, one in Modern Chinese studies and the other in economic and social history from the University of Oxford in England where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She also met her future husband, Sebastian Walker, during her time in England.

In 2005, Wen took a one-year leave of absence from medical school to serve as the national president of the American Medical Student Association in Reston, Virginia, where she participated in campaigns to combat conflicts of interest between physicians and the pharmaceutical companies who notoriously use attractive sales representatives and free gifts to influence doctors, especially young interns and medical residents. Wen became involved in U.S. and international health policy during medical school, serving in Geneva, Switzerland as a fellow for the World Health Organization and in Rwanda as a fellow for the U.S. Department of Defense. In addition, she advised the U.S. Congress on physician workforce and medical education through her appointment on the Council on Graduate Medical Education by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Career

Following medical school, Wen completed residencies at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General) and a clinical fellowship at Harvard Medical School in Boston. She is board certified in emergency medicine. She was married to South Africa native, Sebastian Neil Walker, in February 2012, and started working in emergency medicine at BWH and Mass General before moving to the ER at the George Washington University (GW) in Washington, DC, where she became the Director of Patient-Centered Care Research.

Patient advocacy

In 2013, St. Martin’s Press published her book, When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests. It is about how patients can take control of their health to advocate for better care for themselves.

Wen writes a blog, The Doctor is Listening. She has been a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and Psychology Today on patient empowerment and healthcare reform. She is an advisor to the newly established Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and is an advisor to the Lown Institute and the Medical Education Futures Study. She is the founder of a Who's My Doctor, an international campaign that calls for transparency in medicine.

Wen is a frequent keynote speaker on healthcare reform, education, and leadership, and has given several TED Talks. Her TED talk on transparency in medicine has been viewed nearly 1.5 million times.

Baltimore City health commissioner

In January 2015, Wen was appointed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to serve as the health commissioner. In this role, she oversees an agency of 1,100 employees and $130 million annual budget with wide-ranging responsibilities including management of acute communicable diseases, animal control, chronic disease prevention, emergency preparedness, food service inspections, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, maternal-child health, school health, senior services, and youth violence issues.

She directed the city’s public health recovery efforts after the 2015 Baltimore protests, including ensuring prescription medication access to seniors after the closure of 13 pharmacies and developing the Mental Health/Trauma Recovery Plan, with 24/7 crisis counseling and healing circles and group counseling in schools, community groups, and churches. In the wake of the 2015 Baltimore protests, the Baltimore City Health Department team has launched B’More Heard and #BMoreHealthySelfie campaigns, B’Healthy in B’More blog, and B’More Health Talks, a biweekly town hall and podcast series on health disparities.

Harm reduction

She has led implementation of the Baltimore opioid overdose prevention and response plan, which includes “hotspotting” and street outreach teams to target individuals most at risk, training family/friends on naloxone use, and launching a new public education campaign. Wen testified to the U.S. Senate HELP Committee on Baltimore's overdose prevention efforts and led a group of state and city health officials to petition the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on adding black box warnings to opioids and benzodiazepines. She convened doctors and public health leaders to sign the Baltimore Statement on the Importance of Childhood Vaccinations and to successfully advocate to ban the sale of powdered alcohol in Maryland.

External links

• Baltimore City Health Department