Leana Wen

Leana Wen, MD, MsC, is an emergency physician, professor of health policy and management at George Washington University, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. She is also a CNN medical analyst and contributing columnist for The Washington Post, where she writes a weekly column and anchors the new Post newsletter, “The Checkup with Dr. Wen.” The author of the critically acclaimed book on patient advocacy, When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests (St. Martin’s Press, 2013), she has a recently released memoir, Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health (Metropolitan Books, July 2021). Previously, she served as Baltimore’s Health Commissioner, where she led the nation’s oldest continuously operating health department in the US to fight the opioid epidemic, treat violence and racism as public health issues, and improve maternal and child health. Dr. Wen obtained her medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine and studied health policy at the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She completed her residency training at Brigham & Women’s Hospital & Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was a clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Wen has received recognition as one of Governing’s Public Officials of the Year, Modern Healthcare’s Top 50 Physician-Executives, World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders, and TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.