Planned Parenthood names 1st physician president in 50 years

Planned Parenthood appointed Leana Wen, MD, as the organization's sixth president Sept. 12. She will be the organization's first physician president in nearly 50 years.

Here are four things to know about Dr. Wen:

1. Dr. Wen will assume her role at Planned Parenthood Nov. 12. She has served as Baltimore's commissioner of health since 2015, overseeing an annual budget of $130 million, more than 1,000 employees, two clinics that serve 18,000-plus patients, and medical programs for 180 city schools.

2. Dr. Wen was instrumental in the city's decision to sue the Trump administration in March for cutting funding for teen pregnancy prevention — a move that resulted in the restoration of $5 million in grant funding to two Baltimore-based teen pregnancy prevention programs. In August, she helped lead a second lawsuit against the administration for jeopardizing the healthcare of thousands of people by intentionally sabotaging the ACA.

3. Born in Shanghai, Dr. Wen immigrated to the U.S. just before her eighth birthday and obtained her citizenship in 2003. She earned her bachelor's degree from California State University, Los Angeles, and went on to earn her medical degree from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and her master's degrees from the University of Oxford in the U.K.

4. In addition to her leadership role in the city's health department, Dr. Wen also works as a faculty member at the Washington, D.C.-based Georgetown University School of Medicine and the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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