Baltimore, meet your new doctor. She’s Leana Wen, a Harvard educated emergency physician and Rhodes Scholar who takes over Thursday as the city’s health commissioner. She succeeds Oxiris Barbot, who left to become deputy health commissioner in New York City.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blakes introduced Wen, 31, at a news conference Wednesday. She said Wen would be the interim health commissioner until she can be confirmed by the city council. Her confirmation hearing before a city council committee is scheduled for Jan. 21. She is expected to be confirmed when the full council meets on Jan. 26.
Jacquelyn Duval-Harvey, who has served as interim health commissioner since last May, has been named director of the Mayor’s Office of Human Services. Duval-Harvey replaces Olivia Farrow, who moves back to the health department to become Deputy Commissioner for Youth Wellness and Community Health.
Wen joins the health department from George Washington University where she was an emergency room physician and director of patient-centered care research for the school’s emergency medicine department.
She said she will focus on youth wellness, substance abuse and population health over the next 100 days. She will also go on a listening tour across the city and volunteer at local emergency rooms to get to know the city’s health issues.
“These are hard problems, but we are not a city that takes a back seat to public health,” Wen said, “we tackle the problems head on with solutions that are based on evidence and that engage our communities as partners.”
Rawlings-Blake praised Wen for wanting to bring a safe, transparent health system to Baltimore that is focused on patients.
“You have always been a patient first doctor,” the mayor said. “Under your leadership, I am confident that Baltimore can become a patient first city.”
Wen immigrated with her parents to the United States from China when she was eight. She entered California State University, Los Angeles at the age of 13 and graduated at 18 with a biochemistry degree. She earned her medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis and received further medical training at Harvard, Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She also studied public health and health policy at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.
Wen is also a public speaker on health issues, author of the book “When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests” and started the “Who’s My Doctor” project where doctors voluntarily disclose every financial connection to pharmaceutical and medical device company. She is also a contributor to several media outlets including NPR.