During the COVID-19 pandemic, the whole country has gotten to know Dr. Leana Wen, one of CNN’s top medical analysts. Baltimoreans, of course, were already well acquainted with the articulate, data-driven, compassionate former city health commissioner.

Wen oversaw the B’more Healthy Babies initiative, which dramatically reduced infant mortality, and successfully fought to make naloxone—the opioid overdose reversal medication—available over the counter for city residents. Some may also know of her immigrant family’s hardships, but few likely have an appreciation for just how much she overcame.

In Lifelines, Wen shares her personal story and struggles in forthright detail and connects the dots of her public health approach to treating much of what ails this country.

The most compelling parts of your book are your family’s financial and personal struggles during your childhood. Public housing, food stamps, school lunch programs, and state university grants all factor into your story.
I hadn’t intended to [write about that]. I’d initially pitched the book as a way to tell positive stories about public health and Baltimore. In writing the book, I recognized that my story is a story of public health successes, too. There are other stories I shared for specific reasons; for example, my mother’s misdiagnosis, then eventual diagnosis with breast cancer, because I learned a lot of lessons about what it means to be a patient advocate.

You also share intimate accounts of your own physical and mental health experiences, in particular as a woman and mother.
I talk about things like my struggle with infertility, post-partum depression, and growing up with a severe speech impediment because those were such deep sources of stigma, fear, and shame for me. In telling my story, I wanted to help others break down their stigma, fear, and shame with these issues, and whatever else might be challenging sources of concern in their lives. I also share a lot of stories about my mother because being a working mother myself, the idea of work-life balance is something I think about a lot.

How do you define public health?
Here’s the issue with public health. It’s hard to define because it is often what happens when you have prevented something from occurring. There is no face of public health because it usually is successful when it is invisible. We have the face of a child who was lead poisoned, but what about the home remediation that was done to prevent a child from getting lead poisoned? I see public health as addressing all the elements of health and well-being. The elements of housing as health care. The food that we eat. Public health can be a powerful tool to level the field of inequality.

You were fairly young when you were selected by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to lead the City Health Department.
I was 31, but let me point out that Dr. Joshua Sharfstein and Dr. Peter Beilenson were both in their 30s when they were selected. I think we have a history in Baltimore of selecting individuals who have a bold vision and track record from an early age of not being afraid of difficult challenges.

You say at one point in the book that public health requires public trust.
I am very concerned about how public health has become a pawn in partisan politics. Even the idea of people going door-to-door to educate on mask wearing and vaccines somehow has been misunderstood as an attempt to take away people’s guns. How did that happen? Or look at Tennessee, not only has the state health department been asked to stop outreach to adolescents about the COVID vaccines, they’ve been asked to stop outreach about vaccines in general, including messaging about measles and polio vaccines. This [lack of trust] is a serious threat to public health.

As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and the death toll in Maryland climbed again Monday, Gov. Larry Hogan and former Baltimore City health commissioner Leana Wen discussed the potential reopening of the economy, which President Donald Trump has been pushing for, on CNN.

Despite concerns from White House public health experts and governors and elected officials from around the country, President Trump continued to press for the removal of work and business restrictions on Twitter and during his daily briefing yesterday.

“I have been having discussions with my team and top experts,” Trump said, reading from a prepared statement before an ultimately contentious late afternoon event with members of the media. “We’re very close to completing a plan to open the country . . . We will soon finalize new and very important guidelines to give governors the information they need to start safely opening their states. My administration’s plans and corresponding guidelines will give people the confidence they need to begin returning to normal life.”

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. surpassed 600,000 by Tuesday, including more than 25,000 deaths, the highest total of any country to date.

Earlier Monday, however, Gov. Hogan noted on CNN with Anderson Cooper that the decision to restrict commercial activity in Maryland, as well as more than 40 other states, was made by governors—not the president or federal government.

“[We’ve been] talking with our scientists and our doctors, some really smart folks, including Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who is the former FDA commissioner, [Dr.] Tom Inglesby from Johns Hopkins, along with some of our business leaders about how we would go about this in a safe way,” Hogan said. “I think it is something the governors are taking a lead on and will continue to do so.”

When Cooper replied that Trump was now making the case that the decision to reopen the economy was his—and not the governors’—Hogan pushed back against the president’s claim. “It’s not my understanding of the Constitution,” Hogan said.

In terms of the federal stimulus package, Hogan also noted none of the funding was directed to state governments to help alleviate local economic losses and growing budget deficits due to the collapse of state revenues.

“States are really in a position to be able to help get our economies back on line, and we’ve also suffered major revenue losses that we need to provide the basic services to all the people in our states,” Hogan said. “We made the tough decisions to shut things down and to put in place these tough social distancing practices, which are having an impact on the economy and we need that help from the federal government so we can help get the economy back on track when it is safe to do so.”

Hogan, who is chairman of the National Governors Association, told Vice President Mike Pence in a conference call Monday that governors across the country need $500 billion to save their budgets.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases topped 9,400 in the state by Tuesday. More than 300 deaths have also been reported in Maryland to date, with the African-American community disproportionately impacted. The latest modeling from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicts that Maryland’s daily number of cases and deaths will peak this week, level off, and then steadily decline into the first weeks of May.

Dr. Leana Wen, the former Baltimore City health commissioner and current visiting professor of public health at George Washington University, cautioned in a separate CNN interview that while the country may seeing a peak, in terms of daily cases and deaths from COVID-19, the outbreak of the virus is far from contained.

“The peak doesn’t mean that deaths have stopped,” Wen told CNN’s John King. “Actually, the peak that we may be hitting may be one in which there are thousands of ongoing deaths [in the country]. And, now there is also all this talk of opening our economy and removing restrictions.”

She added that the U.S. still needs a national coordinated effort to secure personal protection equipment for healthcare workers, ramp up testing, and build public health infrastructure before it’s safe to fully reopen the economy.

“But it seems we are doing this backwards because we shouldn’t be talking about a timeline as much as we should be talking about metrics and capabilities, including the number of tests that can be made widely available [and] the public health infrastructure needed to able to identity individuals who test positive and trace their contacts,” she said. “And the health care infrastructure overall to be able to treat people and not be rationing resources all the time. We are nowhere near having these capabilities in place.”

She also later took to Twitter to condemn the president’s defensiveness and continued attacks on the media Monday:

Planned Parenthood Federation of America announced Wednesday that Baltimore City Health Department Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen will serve as its sixth president and become the second doctor to lead the organization in its 102-year history.

A former emergency room physician, Wen has led the City Health Department since January 2015 when she was appointed by then-Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Under Wen, the Baltimore City Health Department has become recognized as a leader in public health innovations—pushing for free prescription access for citizens to naloxone, which reverses an opioid overdose, for example—and was recently named Local Health Department of the Year by the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

Wen, a Chinese immigrant, has also been at forefront of advocacy for women’s health and reproductive rights, including leading the city’s fight against Trump Administration cuts to teen pregnancy prevention and local health care clinics. Last month, she also helped lead a legal action against the Trump Administration that alleges an effort by the administration unlawfully undermines the Affordable Care Act and puts thousands of Baltimoreans at risk of losing access to health care.

“Providing healthcare and fighting to protect that access to care—that’s what I have been doing my entire life. I am so proud to do this at the Baltimore City Health Department, and soon, at Planned Parenthood: to lead the fight for healthcare access, for gender equality, and for our core values in support of women, children, families, and vulnerable communities,” Wen said in a statement. “The cost of taking on this fight is leaving a job I love and colleagues I admire and draw inspiration from every day. But at this critical juncture in our nation’s history, it is my obligation to take on this challenge and fight with everything I have.”

Wen’s last day as health commission will be October 12. She officially joins Planned Parenthood Nov 12.

As we wrote in our 2016 profile, Wen, 35, was born in Shanghai, China. Her parents were political dissidents and she was 8 years old when they were granted asylum, settling first in Utah and then Compton, California. At 18, she graduated summa cum laude from UCLA and earned her medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine before becoming a Rhodes Scholar.

In Compton, she witnessed firsthand how low wages and poverty impact the health of communities and individuals.

“I saw neighbors go for years without access to care for their diabetes and then end up dying from it,” Wen told Baltimore. “I saw children die from asthma, from other preventable illnesses, because they didn’t have access to health care for any number of reasons, whether it was cost or fear or stigma.”

Growing up, Wen, her mother, and younger sister often relied on Planned Parenthood for healthcare. While earning her medical degree in St. Louis, she volunteered at a local Planned Parenthood health center.

She was also elected president of the American Medical Student Association during medical school, taking a year off to fulfill her responsibilities, including leading 65,000 physicians-in-training to campaign for reproductive rights and universal healthcare. She graduated summa cum laude from California State University, Los Angeles at the age of 18, and earned her medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine before becoming a Rhodes Scholar.

“I depended on Planned Parenthood for medical care at various times in my own life, and as a public health leader, I have seen firsthand the lifesaving work it does for our most vulnerable communities,” Wen said in a post to her Facebook page.

Wen’s appointment comes at a time of considerable concern over women’s health, contraceptive and reproductive rights. With the likely addition of conservative U.S. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh before the upcoming mid-term elections, the Supreme Court is expected to move further right as women’s healthcare cases and issues continue to advance through the legal justice system.

In a press release, Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings alluded to the current political climate as well as specific pressure directed at Planned Parenthood and various state capitols around the country. He also said Wen will be missed in the city.

“Dr. Wen will follow the dynamic leadership of Cecile Richards, who fought tirelessly against heinous and misinformed attacks on women’s reproductive rights and defended Planned Parenthood as a trusted healthcare provider,” Cummings said. “I am certain that Dr. Wen will continue the fight to protect women’s healthcare. She is a brilliant physician and a passionate public health leader. Although she will be sorely missed by Baltimore, I look forward to continuing our shared mission to ensure that all of our citizens have access to quality, affordable healthcare.”

Among other Baltimore initiatives under Wen’s direction, B’More for Healthy Babies has continued to help lower infant mortality rates, which have fallen nearly 40 percent over the past four years. Wen launched the city’s Vision for Baltimore campaign, which provides free glasses to every child in need of corrective eyewear.

She also helped secure funding for Safe Streets, a program staffed by ex-offenders to tackle gun violence, and led public campaigns on childhood obesity and vaccinations.

During her tenure, Wen has been an outspoken and leading advocate for the need for more state and federal funding for addiction treatment, and she often is called to testify in Annapolis and Washington. Pointing to her state and national influence on key health issues, she has more than 25,000 followers on Twitter.

“This has been a dream job [serving as Baltimore’s health commissioner]—not only to work alongside the most dedicated public servants I’ve ever known, but to join with them in a common mission to combat disparities and improve health and well-being in Baltimore,” Wen said.

In 2016, American Public Health Association awarded Wen its highest award for local public health work. Last year, Governing magazine named her one its Public Officials of the Year.

“Today is a historic day for Planned Parenthood and the millions of people it serves,” said Naomi Aberly, chair of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Board of Directors. “A dynamic public health leader and practicing physician, Dr. Wen is the first doctor to lead Planned Parenthood in nearly 50 years. Not only will she help Planned Parenthood continue to provide high-quality care to women, men, and young people across the country, she will be a powerful voice in our fight to ensure women have the ability to make their own healthcare decisions—no matter what.”

More than 2,200 Maryland residents died in 2017 from unintended drug and alcohol-related intoxication, setting an all-time mark for the state in the seventh consecutive year.

Of 2,282 drug and alcohol-related deaths in Maryland last year, 2,009 were opioid-related, according to a report released Thursday by the Maryland Department of Health. Those numbers have more than tripled since 2011, when the number of opioid-related deaths in the state first began to rise. The statewide data from the first quarter of 2018—which shows a nearly 20 percent increase in unintended intoxication deaths over the same period last year—indicates the ongoing public health crisis is only worsening.

Baltimore magazine chronicled the opioid crisis and its impact on Hagerstown and Washington County in our July issue.

In Baltimore City, 761 people died from drug and alcohol related deaths in 2017, a significant increase from the 694 fatalities in 2016—and a seven-fold jump since 2011—driven by opioid-related overdoses. Baltimore is one of hundreds of jurisdictions in the U.S. that has sued pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors of opioids for their alleged criminal roles in bringing the drugs to market.

Baltimore City, by far, has the highest death rate for unintentional intoxications deaths in the state at 45.1 deaths per 100,000 residents. It is followed by Cecil County (31.4), Caroline County (31.4), Caroline County (29.9), Allegany County (29.0) and Washington County (28.8).

“We are seeing an epidemic of overdoses in Maryland and around the country and these numbers are terrifying,” said Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen in response to the report. “We are not even at the peak of the epidemic and we don’t know what the peak looks like.”

Fentanyl, a powerful opioid painkiller, which is also made illegally and sometimes mixed with cocaine and heroin, continues to be one of the factors driving overdose fatalities.

“In the first three months of 2018 alone, we’ve seen 500 fentanyl-related deaths,” Maryland Department of Health Secretary Robert R. Neall said in a statement. “We’re asking those with a substance use disorder to immediately seek treatment and for more individuals to learn how to use and carry naloxone.”

Wen said the city needs more resources to combat the crisis, including additional funding to make naloxone, a medication that can be used by non-medical professional citizens to rapidly reverse an overdose, more available. “Everyday residents in Baltimore saved 1,130 people in 2017, but we are rationing its use,” Wen said. “Imagine how many more lives we could save if we had the money to do so.”

Wen added that the city also needs greater state and federal support to help treat those with addiction issues. “Treatment is not a one-off,” she said. “It needs to be sustained to be effective.”

The new numbers and report quickly became campaign fodder in the current race for governor between incumbent Republican Larry Hogan and Democratic nominee Ben Jealous.

“The opioid epidemic is one of the most challenging public health crises of our time and it is clear that Larry Hogan’s incremental steps are not getting the job done,” said Maryland Democratic Party spokesperson Fabion Seaton in a statement. “Ben Jealous has proposed a bold and innovative plan to take the opioid epidemic head-on, but Gov. Hogan shouldn’t wait to implement these solutions, he should implement them now. Lives are at stake and time is of the essence.”

The state Health Department called tacking the opioid epidemic “a top priority” of the Hogan-Rutherford Administration in a press release accompanying the report.

“Every day, numerous state agencies and other stakeholders are working together on the statewide response. We are seeing success on the prescriber side as hospitals and medical providers have been driving innovative solutions to reduce inappropriate prescribing,” said Clay Stamp, executive director, the state’s Opioid Operational Command Center. “Yet, we have to stay focused on and resolute in our three-pronged strategy – prevention and education, enforcement, and expanding access to treatment and recovery.”

On Friday, U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) will hold a roundtable discussion with Baltimore community leaders on efforts to combat the epidemic. Earlier this year, Cummings and Warren introduced the Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency (CARE) Act, which is modeled on the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act. That act was enacted nearly three decades years ago with bipartisan support to boost federal investments and local decision-making to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

On Monday morning, Mayor Catherine Pugh and Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen announced a new initiative to combat the opioid epidemic in the city. The Levels of Care initiative involves identifying best practices for responding to the opioid epidemic and will be based in 11 Baltimore hospitals included Bon Secours, Mercy Medical Center, St. Agnes, University of Maryland, and Johns Hopkins Bayview. 

“Among Baltimore’s greatest assets is Baltimore’s unparalleled hospital system which, arguably, is the finest in the world,” Pugh said in a statement. “I am calling on the leaders and medical professionals of our hospitals to join us in fighting the opioid crisis, which continues to claim far too many lives not only in our community, but across our nation. This is a national health crisis and it needs to be treated with the advanced medical resources that we know can be effective and which for sure will save lives.”

The levels of care were developed with input from hospital administrators and will be based on criteria like a hospitals’ ability to provide treatment to patients who screen positive for addiction, distribute overdose medication naloxone to patients, connect patients with peers or other support services, and educate how doctors prescribe opioids. The levels will range from one to three—with one being the highest—to rate a hospital’s comprehensive response to opioid treatment. Currently, the levels of care are open to the public for comment until May 31 and will be finalized this summer.

“We are in the midst of the deadliest drug epidemic in American history,” Wen said in a press conference. “And Baltimore City—with the highest age-adjusted overdose fatality rate of any metropolitan county in the United States—is one of its epicenters.”

The initiative is based on a similar program in Rhode Island, one of the only places in the country where overdose deaths decreased last year. Dr. Wen and the health department have been approaching the opioid crisis in Baltimore aggressively since the number of opioid-related deaths have increased each year. As of June 1, 2017, legislators enacted a standing order for a blanket prescription of naloxone at all pharmacies in the city.

In the spring of 2019, the Baltimore City health department will also open the state’s first-ever Stabilization Center for those under the influence of drugs to receive short-term medical and social interventions as part of the city’s plan to create a 24/7 behavioral health emergency department. Services provided will include medical screening and monitoring, connections to behavioral health and social services, and buprenorphine induction to treat opioid addiction. The Stabilization Center will be located in the Coppin Heights/Rosemont community.

“We are leading the nation to provide evidence-based treatment for the disease of addiction,” Wen said. “The only way to combat it is to ensure that resources and treatment are available.”

Every day at least two people die from opioid overdose in Baltimore City, according to health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen. There are only 4,000 doses remaining of the life-saving drug, naloxone, to last until July 2018 with no set date for replenishment.

“If we didn’t ration it, we would use it up in the next two weeks,” said Wen. “Right now, we are making the decision every day about who are the most vulnerable people, and rationing it accordingly.”

Naloxone, or more specifically Narcan, is a medication­ administered as a nasal spray or injection that reverses the effects of opioids during an overdose. Since 2015, residents administering Narcan to victims of overdose saved over 950 lives in Baltimore.

As of June 1, legislators enacted a standing order for a blanket prescription of Narcan at all pharmacies in the city. Unfortunately, the Baltimore City Health Department has run out of funds to purchase the medicine, and has been relying on the generosity of drug companies for donations.

“It’s very safe and effective. It’s got no side effects to someone who is not using opioids,” Wen said. “It’s not addictive—this is a life saving antidote that should be available to every single person.”

Back in March, Governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency for the opioid epidemic in Maryland. He also announced a supplemental budget of $50 million in new funding over five years for opioid overdose prevention and treatment.

Katie Kuehn, communications director for the Opioid Operational Command Center, said that as part of the first $10 million in the budget, funding would be available “soon” to local jurisdictions to purchase more naloxone.

“Recognizing the urgency of providing additional naloxone to Baltimore, Behavioral Health System Baltimore requested . . . that a portion of its current budget be allocated to purchase more naloxone to be used by the end of this fiscal year,” she said in an email. “Behavioral Health System Baltimore and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Behavioral Health Administration worked together to determine that $150,000 was needed, and it was approved the same day.”

According to Wen, Baltimore City has over one-third of all overdoses in the state, so she believes that Baltimore should receive at least one-third of that $10 million.

“We need Narcan, but we also definitely need treatment,” Wen said. “It’s important to save someone’s life if they’re overdosing, but we also need to get them into long-term treatment. That’s what will help them get their lives back.”

Kuehn said that more information about state funding would be announced in the coming days. Currently, the Baltimore City Health Department is awaiting a response from the state for the funding request, but Wen is being proactive with the fight against opioid abuse and overdose. Initiatives like the needle exchange program, which provides clean needles and substance abuse counseling, service about 3,500 people a year.

In addition, the Start Talking Act, which was passed this year, requires public schools to offer drug education as early as third grade, including the dangers of heroin and other opioids.

“Everyone has the ability to save a life. Unfortunately, in our community there are people dying who are mothers, fathers, siblings,” Wen said. “We strongly believe that everyone should have naloxone in their medicine cabinet.”

It’s late August and Dr. Leana Wen is standing underneath the soaring dome of City Hall, a bank of cameras pointed at her as she leads a news conference to mark National Overdose Awareness Day.

As Baltimore’s health commissioner, substance abuse and addiction are among her top priorities, not to mention issues of national importance. Last year, more Baltimoreans died from overdoses (393) than from homicides (344). So she’s here—flanked by Senator Ben Cardin, Congressman John Sarbanes, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, Fire Chief Niles Ford, and others—to sound the alarm about the nation’s opioid overdose epidemic and tout the city’s innovative response to the crisis.

There’s much to tout. In October 2015, Wen became the first health commissioner in Maryland to issue a blanket prescription allowing all Baltimoreans to obtain naloxone, a medication that can reverse an in-progress opioid overdose. The bold move attracted national attention and helped earn her a spot on a panel with President Barack Obama at the National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in March.

The city Health Department is working now to train people to administer the remedy, and Wen makes sure to highlight the initiative’s progress in her remarks.

“We all trained over 14,000 people as of last month. Fourteen thousand people on how to save a life from overdose,” she reiterates, her voice echoing off the marble floors and columns of the chamber.

“Even more exciting than that,” she continues, “we have saved . . . 400 residents and citizens from overdose. Four hundred individuals who, otherwise, would have died.”

After her remarks, Sen. Cardin speaks, then Rep. Sarbanes, Commissioner Davis, and Chief Ford, each one singling out Wen’s leadership for special praise. Finally, as the last speaker—Kathy Westcoat of Behavioral Health System Baltimore—is coming to the microphone, two of Wen’s staffers—public information officer Sean Naron and communications director Michelle Mendes—catch their boss’s eye. She gives them a quizzical look and hurries over to them. After some hushed discussion, Wen and her staff slip away down a hallway, a camera crew trailing behind.

It all looks rather curious. Has she just been warned of a bioterrorism attack? A suspected case of Ebola or Zika? Maybe there has been an emergency and she has to go door-to-door, checking that residents have sufficient supplies of their vital medications, like she did last year after the riots? Wen’s purview as health commissioner is so vast that any of these scenarios are possible.

But it is nothing so dire—in fact, it’s good news. Turns out, the Food and Drug Administration has agreed to put black box warnings on benzodiazepines, a class of drugs commonly used to treat anxiety, and opioid painkillers, warning of the potentially fatal effects of mixing them. Earlier this year, Wen led a coalition of public health officials asking the FDA to add its sternest warning label to the drugs. Now that FDA Commissioner Robert Califf has agreed, he wants Wen to sit in on the conference call to reporters. And the camera crew is catching it all for a documentary about millennials making a difference.

Such is life for the 33-year-old Wen, Baltimore’s youngest-ever health commissioner and perhaps the nation’s brightest light in the field of public health.

“She’s a whippersnapper,” jokes Peter Beilenson, the city’s health commissioner from 1992 to 2005. “She’s very much a go-getter and a dynamo, and the city desperately needs that.”

Even before she was appointed in January 2015 to lead the city’s 1,000-employee-strong Health Department, Wen was something of a media darling. She gave frequent TED Talks. She wrote a critically acclaimed book (When Doctors Don’t Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests) partly inspired by her time as a caregiver during her mother’s eight-year battle with breast cancer. And she was a regular commentator on medical issues for print, online, radio, and TV outlets.

But after the unrest following the death of Freddie Gray exposed the racial and socio-economic disparities in the city, Wen became—both locally and nationally—an even more influential figure, someone who could explain to believers and skeptics alike why the fissures in our society exist, how they got so big, and what we could do about them.

“After the unrest, we saw [an] opportunity to address these longstanding issues,” Wen says, sitting in her tidy office at the Health Department’s Jonestown headquarters one late summer morning. “It happened because of systemic racism, because of structural inequities, because of our policies of mass incarceration and discrimination—and all of those issues we believe are tied to health.”

This is a central tenant of public health: everything is connected. As the self-described “chief marketer for health in the city,” Wen spends a lot of her time helping people make those connections.

“We can’t talk about health without speaking about education and at the same time we can’t talk about education without speaking about glasses for our children and healthy babies and lead poisoning,” she says, now on a roll. “And then we can’t talk about violence without talking about addiction and mental health. . . . Whatever issue people care about, we then bring it back to why this is a public health issue.”

“She’s very much a go-getter and a dynamo, and the city desperately needs that.”

Wen was born in Shanghai, China, in January 1983. Her parents were political dissidents. She was 8 years old when they were granted political asylum in the U.S., settling first in Utah, and then, later, in a series of low-income communities in Southern California. There, she witnessed firsthand how poverty contributes to poor health.

“I saw neighbors go for years without access to care for their diabetes and then end up dying from it,” she recalls. “I saw children die from asthma, from other preventable illnesses, because they didn’t have access to health care for any number of reasons, whether it was cost or fear or stigma.”

Wen resolved to become a doctor, so she could address these glaring inequities. There was only one problem.

“I just didn’t know that I could make it,” she says. “I mean it sounded totally nuts to want to be a doctor when you don’t even know a doctor!”

In many ways, the deck was stacked against her: She was an immigrant. Her family was poor. And she suffered a severe stutter that still occasionally interrupts her otherwise perfect diction.

But Wen is not one to take no for an answer. Behind her impeccable manners, self-deprecating sense of humor, and sweet, dimpled smile, there is a formidable steeliness.

“I come from a family of fighters,” she says. “My father was imprisoned in China for years for speaking out against the government. . . . My grandparents were also activists. I come from a family that has a tradition of saying we cannot sit back and watch things happen to us. . . . We believe in shaping the course of our own future and of fighting every step of the way—for the right things.”

This being the family’s tradition, Wen applied her considerable intellect and, working longer and harder than most would dare, achieved. In 1996, at age 13, she enrolled at California State University, Los Angeles, graduating five years later with a degree in biochemistry (summa cum laude, thank you very much). From there, she went to med school at Washington University in St. Louis.

Reading Bill Clinton’s autobiography, My Life, helped with her next step.

“I was in medical school and saw these other issues of social determinism—I didn’t even know the term public health at the time. I just knew that I wanted to do something that addressed the root causes of why people got sick,” Wen explains. “So I read Bill Clinton’s book, and I read about his experience as a Rhodes Scholar and how he went to England and met all these other people who got involved with policy and politics. And I was like, ‘Okay! That’s what I should do.’”

So, she did. In 2007, Wen left for a two-year stint as a Rhodes Scholar in Oxford, England. It was as life-changing as she had hoped.

As a discipline, public health bridges the gap between medical science and public policy. For instance, diagnosing and treating cardiovascular disease is the job of doctors, but public health professionals seek to understand why, for instance, African Americans are about 30 percent more likely to die from heart disease than non-Hispanic whites. What are the cultural, societal, and/or biological factors that cause this? And, just as importantly, how can they be addressed? By necessity, it is complex and very challenging. Wen loved it.

“I believe that public health is the best way for us to level the playing field . . . that it’s a powerful social justice tool that allows us to get at all these other issues,” she says.

Wen’s time in England was life-changing for personal reasons, too.

“I met a lot of my mentors through Rhodes,” she notes. These include former Mayor Kurt Schmoke and former NAACP President Ben Jealous. She also met her husband, South African national Sebastian Walker, who was then working in England.

“My life totally changed as a result of reading a book . . . which sounds totally crazy!” she says with a laugh.

Back in the U.S., Wen started a fellowship at Harvard Medical School during which she worked in the ERs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. While at Mass General, she treated survivors of the Boston Marathon bombings, which left her with nightmares for weeks.

“I am glad I was able to help,” Wen told USA Today at the time. “I wish I could have helped more. But I wish I hadn’t seen it.”

After Boston, she went to Washington, D.C., where she continued as an emergency physician, this time at The George Washington University Hospital. She says she liked the immediacy of ER work, but yearned to address what she calls “the larger picture.”

“This is the job I’ve always wanted,” she says. “I never could have articulated that this is the job I’ve always wanted, but I love the city, I love the people, I love being hands on. I love seeing the outcome of our work in such a visceral way.”

The Baltimore City Health Department has the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating health department in the country and, since its founding in the 1790s, has accrued an almost laughably disparate slate of responsibilities. These include animal control, restaurant inspections, emergency preparedness and response, STD/HIV testing, mother and infant health, youth violence prevention, and, of course, disease management.

Another interesting feature of the department is its funding structure. In contrast to most municipal agencies, only approximately 20 percent of the Health Department’s budget is supplied by the city. The rest comes from state and federal grants, nonprofits, and support from businesses and individuals. This results in a department that Wen says “functions at the pace, and with the principles, of a startup.”

Despite—or maybe because of—these unusual characteristics, the department has a history of attracting dynamic leaders, many of whom have created influential programs that have become national models.

There’s B’more for Healthy Babies, a motherhood preparedness program that has lowered the city’s infant mortality rate by 38 percent since 2009, when it was the nation’s fourth worst. Then there is Safe Streets, which employs community members—some of them ex-offenders—to walk the streets in volatile neighborhoods and “interrupt” escalating confrontations before they can turn violent.

Wen wants to make her mark, too.

In her first 18 months, her priorities have been addiction/mental health, youth health and wellness, and providing care for the most vulnerable/reducing disparities—worthy initiatives certainly, but perhaps lacking a certain unifying vision.

Then, in late August, Wen announced Healthy Baltimore 2020, an ambitious goal to reduce health disparities in the city by 50 percent over the next 10 years. She calls it Baltimore’s “moon shot,” a reference to John F. Kennedy’s 1961 speech declaring his intention to put an American on the moon by the end of the decade.

Wen certainly has her work cut out for her. Despite improvements in recent years, health disparities in Baltimore remain some of the worst in the nation, often breaking down along racial and economic lines.

“One of my predecessors did say to me when taking this job that the only limit to what you can do is your own ability to stay awake,” she says, not really kidding. “It’s challenging when you know that there are so many issues that need to be addressed, and when you know that there’s so much that can be done immediately.”

Paradoxically, after almost two years, Wen now realizes she can probably accomplish more by driving herself—and her staff—just a little bit less.

“We all need to take care of ourselves first and take care of our families first because, otherwise, we’re not able to care for our city,” she says. “And if we’re trying to have Baltimore City be the model of well-being for the country, maybe it’s an important place to start with well-being for ourselves, too.”

To that end, Wen and her husband, who live in Fells Point, have taken up cooking. A former competitive ballroom dancer, she’s also looking to reincorporate dance into her routine.

“I’m trying to do more fun things, things that I really love,” she says, adding that she rejects the term work-life balance because it sets up what, for her, is a false dichotomy.

“I mean, I love my work, and I also live in the community that I serve,” she explains. “It’s such a fluid and dynamic process that it’s difficult to say, ‘This is where my work ends and my life begins.’ Everywhere I go, I see all the residents in Baltimore as my patients, and so, where do you stop?”

Given Wen’s youth and ambition, it is only natural to wonder what will happen if and when Washington calls.

Beilenson, who meets with Wen for breakfast or lunch every few months, vouches for her commitment—with one caveat.

“I also got asked [if I was going to stay] in the first couple years,” says Beilenson, who now runs Evergreen Health, a health insurance startup headquartered in Hampden. “I stayed because I really grew to care about Baltimore, and it’s a great place to be a health commissioner because, frankly, there are so many issues to work on.

“But you know, I also believe in serendipity,” he continues. “I think, certainly, it’s her intention to stay but, for example, if the Clinton administration came calling to have her be head of [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] or [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]—if I were her, I wouldn’t turn it down.”

Wen doesn’t seem all that interested in talking about hypothetical job offers though.

“I am all in on Baltimore,” she affirms. “My family and I have moved here. We are settling here. I think it would be disingenuous to ask other people to invest in the city if I don’t invest in the city. I want everyone else to be all in on Baltimore, so I’m all in on the city, too.”