William H. Frist

Bill Frist was raised in Nashville, Tennessee, with a passion to serve others. He specialized in health care policy and international relations at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. After graduating from Princeton in 1974, he earned his medical degree at Harvard Medical School. He graduated with honors in 1978 and spent the next six years in heart surgery training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and Southampton General Hospital in England. In 1985, he joined the team of innovative heart transplant surgeon Dr. Norman Shumway at Stanford University. After completing a fellowship there, Dr. Frist returned to Nashville and in 1986 became director of Vanderbilt University Medical Center's heart and lung transplantation program. He also taught and operated at the Nashville Veterans Administration Hospital. A pioneer in lung and heart transplantation, he founded the Southeast's first multi-organ, multidisciplinary transplant center at Vanderbilt University in 1989. Under his leadership, the center became recognized as one of the premier transplant facilities in the nation. During his 20 years in medicine, Dr. Frist performed more than 150 heart and lung transplant procedures. He also authored over 100 articles, chapters, and abstracts on medical research. He is board certified in both general surgery and cardiothoracic surgery. Dr. Frist believed he could do more for medicine, patients, fellow Tennesseans, and his country, however, so he began exploring the idea of seeking public office. He won election to the U.S. Senate in 1994, becoming the first practicing physician to be elected to that body since 1928. In 2000, he was elected to senate leadership as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Senator Frist was chosen unanimously to serve as the 16th majority leader of the Senate on December 23, 2002. Two years later, he was reelected unanimously. As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he served as one of only two congressional representatives to the UN General Assembly in the 107th Congress. Keeping his pledge to serve only two terms, "citizen- legislator" Frist voluntarily stepped down as majority leader to return to Nashville in January 2007. At least once a year, he travels as a doctor to sub-Saharan Africa as part of World Medical Mission to do surgery and care for those stricken with disease. Dr. Frist spends his spare time running (7 marathons in 10 years), flying (commercial and instrument ratings), writing (seven books), and completing annual medical mission trips. Currently, he is university professor of medicine and business at Vanderbilt University and is a partner in private-equity firm Cressey and Company. Dr. Frist serves on several boards, including Hope Through Healing Hands, Millennium Challenge Corporation, Africare, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, CSIS, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Committee on Conscience, Save the Children, Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project.