September 12, 2018 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Baltimore physician Leana Wen will be the next president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the organization announced Wednesday. She will take the reins from Cecile Richards, 60, who announced in January that she planned to step down after 12 years as the leader of the premier reproductive-rights group in the United States.
In a Twitter post, Richards said Wen “has dedicated her career to fighting for health care for all, both as a doctor and as a public health leader in the city of Baltimore. I know she’ll be a champion for Planned Parenthood patients and for women, men, and young people everywhere.”
Planned Parenthood and other progressive groups saw donations increase substantially after the election of President Trump.
Wen, 35, will be the first Planned Parenthood leader in nearly 50 years with a medical degree, according to the organization. She is an emergency-room physician and has served as the Commissioner of Health for the City of Baltimore since January 2015.
She vowed to “fight with everything I have to protect the access of millions of patients who rely on Planned Parenthood,” according to a news release from the group.
Family Used Planned Parenthood
Wen, her mother, and her sister relied on Planned Parenthood for their health care while Wen was growing up, according to the organization. She was born in Shanghai and immigrated to the United States with her family just before her eighth birthday. She and her parents were granted political asylum and became citizens in 2003.
She graduated summa cum laude from California State University at Los Angeles at the age of 18. She earned her medical degree from the Washington University School of Medicine, while volunteering at Planned Parenthood facilities.
Wen was also a Rhodes Scholar with a master’s degree from the University of Oxford. Her residencies were at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was a clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School. During medical school, she was elected president of the American Medical Student Association.
The new Planned Parenthood president has been recognized as one of the most influential physician executives in the country. In 2016, she was the recipient of the American Public Health Association’s highest award for local public health work.
She will start her new job November 12.
