Dr. Leana Wen

Feb. 11, 2016 ; 6:00 pm

 

As Baltimore City’s Commissioner of Health, Dr. Wen leads the oldest, continuously-operating health department in the U.S. Her innovative approach to public health engages hospitals, prioritizes violence prevention and recently launched an ambitious opioid overdose prevention program. Following the civil unrest in April 2015, she directed Baltimore’s medical access and trauma recovery efforts.

 

A board-certified emergency physician, Dr. Wen received her medical training at Washington University and Brigham & Women’s and Massachusetts General Hospitals. She was a Rhodes Scholar, a Clinical Fellow at Harvard, a consultant with the World Health Organization, and a professor at George Washington University. She has published over 100 articles including in The Lancet, JAMA, and Health Affairs. The author of When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests, Dr. Wen’s work is regularly featured on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Her TED talk on transparency in medicine has been viewed over 1.4 million times.

 

Before Dr. Wen addressed an eager audience of Johns Hopkins students, staff, faculty, and community members, her Special Assistant, Gabriel Auteri, introduced Dr. Wen as an enthusiastic and innovative Health Commissioner. He described working with her during the April 2015 civil unrest and talked at length about the initiative that she spear-headed to reduce overdose deaths in Baltimore City. This program involves training residents to administer a life-saving drug to people at risk of dying from overdose. The drug, naloxone, can reverse the effects of opioids by binding to the same receptors that opioids bind to thereby kicking out the opioids and stopping the sometimes deadly respiratory depression that results from opioids. Gabe taught the audience how to use the nasal applicator in order to administer naloxone to a person overdosing from opioids. He explained that any resident of Baltimore City can obtain a prescription for naloxone from the Health Department.

 

Dr. Wen initiated the 2016 CiM Symposia with her talk, “Medicine’s Next Frontier: The Power of Public Health and Physician Activism,” by discussing the importance of going to where citizens are. She emphasized the role of the Health Department in reaching the citizens most in need of medical care and shared the example of her response to the April 2015 unrest. She led a program that brought prescription medications to citizens whose pharmacy’s had been looted or burned. She also discussed a campaign to reduce sugar consumption in the form soda. Dr. Wen spent much of the talk answering questions from audience members about everything from her views on legalizing drugs to how politics have impacted her ability to achieve goals as Health Commissioner. She explained that her priority is to redirect drug users from the criminal justice system into treatment centers. She described an effective and supportive political environment in Baltimore City. However, Dr. Wen expressed frustration with the financial limitations of the Health Department relative to the mega corporations like soda companies. This disparity in funding drives disproportionate advertising for unhealthy products such as soda and impedes the Health Department’s ability to reach Baltimore City residents and discourage soda consumption.

 

During her talk, Dr. Wen sent a sign-up sheet around the audience. She welcomed all students interested in public health to share their emails to receive updates from the Health Department and calls for volunteers.

 

--Kimberly Fiscella

Conversations in Medicine Web Public Relations