Leana is one of the best speakers I've seen. She knows how to use narrative to convey information. Her presentations . . . finely crafted, using brief, compelling stories to make serious points--without ever losing the audience's attention.
Dr. Leana Wen
Physician and Healthcare Executive; Washington Post Columnist; & Author
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Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Dr. Leana Wen
Biography
Dr. Leana Wen is a practicing physician, healthcare executive, and one of America’s leading public health experts. She is a columnist for The Washington Post, where she writes a twice-weekly column on medicine and public health and anchors the Post newsletter, "The Checkup with Dr. Wen". She is also a clinical associate professor at George Washington University, where she is a distinguished fellow of the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity; a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; the host of HLTH’s The Beat podcast; and a frequently featured on-air commentator, including as a medical analyst for CNN and guest contributor for NPR, PBS and BBC.
Previously, she served as Baltimore's Health Commissioner, where she led the nation’s oldest continuously operating health department in the U.S. to fight the opioid epidemic, address disparities and mental health access, and improve maternal and child health. She is author of two critically-acclaimed books, When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests and Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public 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 in emergency medicine 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.
Dr. Wen lives with her husband and their two young children in Baltimore. In her free time, she loves cycling, trail running, and open water swimming.
Dr. Leana Wen
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Current: Aspen Ideas: Health Panel
Time 17:07
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Dr. Leana Wen
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Navigating the Health Policy Landscape
Challenges and Opportunities
One of the foremost experts on public health and health policy, Washington Post columnist Dr. Leana Wen, can speak on major policy issues in today’s ever-changing landscape. From prescription drug reform to the promises of new technology such as artificial intelligence to the renewed focus on long-neglected topics of mental health, population health, and integrated care, Dr. Wen presents a compelling picture of the current landscape. She then guides the audience to consider opportunities for how to proceed in light of these trends.
Post-Pandemic Lessons, Trends, and Implications for the Future of Healthcare
Dr. Leana Wen has been one of the nation’s most prominent experts during the COVID-19 pandemic, called upon for her expertise by Congress, state and local governments, and featured daily on CNN, NPR, and PBS. She can speak to what the pandemic revealed about social determinants of health, mental health access, and health preparedness, then cover what major trends are ahead. What does the future look like for digital health and telemedicine? What innovations has the pandemic spurred, from AI to payment reform to behavioral health treatment? And what can be done to address rampant burnout among health professionals?
The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
Hear the perspective of a practicing physician and Washington Post columnist who is an expert on the digital transformation of healthcare. She will delve into the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence in medicine, going through use cases of predictive and generative AI to explain how AI can improve diagnosis, personalize treatment, and reduces inefficiencies. She will also present pitfalls, the need for regulatory guardrails, and why digital fluency is so crucial for the healthcare sector. Depending on interest, she can also into other aspects of tech and health, such as applications of telemedicine and digital health strategies that have enabled remote patient monitoring and at-home diagnostics and “hospital at home” treatment.
Mental Health and Well-Being
The stress that people have endured during the pandemic will not vanish after the immediate crisis passes. Dr. Wen brings audiences insights from her work as a practicing physician and expert in addressing mental health and addiction policy. She shares personal experiences, strategies to combat isolation and reestablish connection, and best practices for employee health from around the world. She describes the often hidden epidemic of addiction, including to alcohol and opioids, and the growing need for education and regulation of marijuana and psychedelic usage. Finally, she talks about the future of work, and outlines for audiences a framework for incorporating mental and physical wellness and resiliency practices into the office, home, and everyday life.
Dr. Leana Wen
Featured Books
When Doctors Don't Listen
by Dr. Leana Wen
In this examination of the doctor-patient relationship, Drs. Wen and Kosowsky argue that diagnosis, once the cornerstone of medicine, is fast becoming a lost art, with grave consequences.
Using real-life stories of cookbook-diagnoses-gone-bad, the doctors illustrate how active patient participation can prevent these mistakes. Wen and Kosowsky offer tangible follow-up questions patients can easily incorporate into every doctor's visit to avoid counterproductive and even potentially harmful tests. In the pursuit for the best medical care available, readers can't afford to miss out on these inside-tips and more: - How to deal with a doctor who seems too busy to listen to you- 8-Pillars to a Better Diagnosis How to tell the whole story of your illness
- Learning test risks and evaluating whether they're worth it
- How to get a working diagnosis at the end of every doctor's visit By empowering patients to engage with their doctors as partners in their diagnosis, When Doctors Don't Listen is an essential guide that enables patients to speak up and take back control of their health care.
Lifelines
by Dr. Leana Wen
From medical expert Leana Wen, MD, Lifelines is an insider's account of public health and its crucial role--from opioid addiction to global pandemic--and an inspiring story of her journey from struggling immigrant to being one of Time's 100 Most Influential People.
"Public health saved your life today--you just don't know it," is a phrase that Dr. Leana Wen likes to use. You don't know it because good public health is invisible. It becomes visible only in its absence, when it is underfunded and ignored, a bitter truth laid bare as never before by the devastation of COVID-19. Leana Wen--emergency physician, former Baltimore health commissioner, CNN medical analyst, and Washington Post contributing columnist--has lived on the front lines of public health, leading the fight against the opioid epidemic, outbreaks of infectious disease, maternal and infant mortality, and COVID-19 disinformation. Here, in gripping detail, Wen lays bare the lifesaving work of public health and its innovative approach to social ills, treating gun violence as a contagious disease, for example, and racism as a threat to health. Wen also tells her own uniquely American story: an immigrant from China, she and her family received food stamps and were at times homeless despite her parents working multiple jobs. That child went on to attend college at thirteen, become a Rhodes scholar, and turn to public health as the way to make a difference in the country that had offered her such possibilities. Ultimately, she insists, it is public health that ensures citizens are not robbed of decades of life, and that where children live does not determine whether they live.
Dr. Leana Wen
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