Particle.news
William Harrison Frist (born February 22, 1952) is an American physician, businessman, and politician who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1995 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as Senate Majority Leader from 2003 to 2007. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Frist studied government and health care policy at Princeton University and earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School. He trained as a cardiothoracic transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine, and later founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center (today the busiest heart transplant program in the world). In the 1994 Republican Wave, he defeated incumbent Democratic Senator Jim Sasser; he pledged to only serve two terms. After serving as Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Frist succeeded Tom Daschle as the Senate Majority Leader. Frist helped pass several parts of President George W. Bush's domestic agenda, including the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 and the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 (which established today's Medicare Advantage), as well as PEPFAR, the largest commitment by any nation to address a single disease (HIV) in history. Frist left the Senate in 2007, honoring his commitment to serve no more than two terms. In his post-Senate career, he serves as Chair of the Global Board of The Nature Conservancy. He is also a founding partner of Frist Cressey Ventures, a special partner and chairman of the Executives Council of the health service investment firm Cressey & Company, and co-chair of the Health Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He currently hosts the A Second Opinion Podcast on the intersection of policy, medicine, and innovation.
