Bill Frist
William Harrison Frist is an American physician, businessman, and policymaker who served as a United States Senator for 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. In the 1994 United States Senate election in Tennessee, he defeated incumbent Democratic senator Jim Sasser.
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. Frist left the Senate in 2007, honoring his pledge 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. From 2019 to 2022, he hosted the A Second Opinion Podcast on the intersection of policy, medicine, and innovation.
Early life and education
Frist was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of Dorothy Frist and Thomas Fearn Frist Sr. He is a fourth-generation Tennessean. His father was a doctor and co-founded the health care business organization which became Hospital Corporation of America. Frist's brother, HCA co-founder Thomas F. Frist, Jr., became chairman and chief executive of HCA in 1997. His other siblings include Robert A. Frist; Dorothy F. Boensch; and Mary F. Barfield.Frist graduated in 1970 from Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, and then from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1974. Frist was a member of University Cottage Club while he was a student at Princeton. In 1972, he held a summer internship with Tennessee congressman Joe L. Evins, who advised Frist that if he wanted to pursue a political career, he should first have a career outside politics. Frist proceeded to Harvard Medical School, where he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine with honors in 1978.
While he was a medical school student in the 1970s, Frist acknowledged in his book Transplant that he performed medical experiments and vivisection on shelter cats while conducting research at Harvard Medical School. He writes about having succumbed to the pressure to succeed in a highly competitive medical school, acknowledging it was "a heinous and dishonest thing to do." This issue became controversial in his first Senate campaign in 1994, and gained national attention after his election to Senate majority leader.
Medical career
While in medical school, Frist joined the laboratory of W. John Powell Jr. at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1977, where he continued his training in cardiovascular physiology. In 1978, he became a resident in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1983, he spent time at Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, England as a senior registrar in cardiothoracic surgery. He returned to Massachusetts General in 1984 as chief resident and fellow in cardiothoracic surgery. From 1985 until 1986, Frist was a senior fellow and chief resident in cardiac transplant service and cardiothoracic surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine. There, he trained under Norman Shumway, a pioneering surgeon known as the father of heart transplantation.After completing his fellowship, Frist became a faculty member at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he began a heart and lung transplantation program. There, he performed the first heart-lung transplant in the Southeast. And in 1990, he performed Tennessee's first single-lung transplant, a notoriously difficult procedure. He also served as a staff surgeon at the Nashville Veterans Administration Hospital. In 1989, he founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center, which today performs more heart transplants than any other center in the world.
In 1991 Frist operated on then–Lieutenant Colonel David Petraeus after he had been shot in a training accident at Fort Campbell. Their paths crossed again when Frist was elected to the Senate and Petraeus rose through the military ranks to General. They later ran the Army 10-miler together in 2002 in Washington, DC.
In 1992, Frist organized a statewide grassroots campaign to return the organ donation card to the Tennessee driver's license and received the Distinguished Service Award from the Tennessee Medical Association for his efforts.
In 1995 Frist, then a sitting senator, successfully resuscitated a constituent suffering a heart attack in the Dirksen Senate Office building.
In 1998, Frist administered emergency aid to victims and the shooter in the 1998 Capitol Shooting.
Frist regularly participated in global medical mission and international relief trips, often with non-profit Samaritan's Purse, providing medical aid in sub-Saharan Africa and taking part in emergency response to hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunami and famine.
During his 20 years in medicine, Frist performed over 150 heart and lung transplants and authored over 100 peer-reviewed medical articles. He is board certified in both general and heart surgery.
United States senator (1995–2007)
In 1990, Frist met with former Senate majority leader Howard Baker about the possibilities of public office. Baker advised him to pursue the Senate and suggested in 1992 that Frist begin preparations to run in 1994. Frist began to build support. He served on the Tennessee governor's Medicaid Task Force from 1992 to 1993, joined the National Steering Committee of the Republican National Committee's Health Care Coalition and was deputy director of the Tennessee Bush-Quayle 1992 campaign.During the 1994 election, Frist promised not to serve for more than two terms, a promise he honored.
Frist accused his 1994 opponent, incumbent senator Jim Sasser, of "sending Tennessee money to Washington, DC", and said, "While I've been transplanting lungs and hearts to heal Tennesseans, Jim Sasser has been transplanting Tennesseans' wallets to Washington, home of Marion Barry." During the campaign he also criticized Sasser for trying to become Senate Majority Leader, claiming that his opponent would be spending more time taking care of Senate business than Tennessee business. Frist won the election, defeating Sasser by 211,062 votes in the 1994 Republican sweep of both houses of Congress, thus becoming the first doctor in the Senate since June 17, 1938, when Royal S. Copeland died.
In his 2000 reelection campaign, Frist easily won with 66 percent of the vote. He received the largest vote total ever by a statewide candidate. Frist's 2000 campaign organization was later fined by the Federal Election Commission for failing to disclose a $1.44 million loan taken out jointly with the 1994 campaign organization. Frist paid a civil fine of $11,000 in a settlement with the FEC.
Frist supported the Iraq war while in the Senate; he supported the initial invasion as well as the war during the Iraqi Insurgency.
Frist first entered the national spotlight when two Capitol police officers were shot inside the United States Capitol by Russell Eugene Weston Jr. in 1998. Frist, the closest doctor, provided immediate medical attention. Frist said of that experience, "You’re trained to respond. … In moments like that, you are not a judge, not a jury, you are a physician. It was a tragic incident. I know almost all of the Capitol guards."
As the only physician in the Senate, Frist served as the congressional spokesman during the 2001 anthrax attacks. His book, When Every Moment Counts: What You Need to Know About Bioterrorism from the Senate's Only Doctor, was published following the attacks and provides a question-and-answer format with timely information on responding to biological agents like anthrax.
File:With Sen. Bill Frist looking on, President George W. Bush signs into law S-3728, the North Korea Nonproliferation Act of 2006, Friday, Oct. 13, 2006, in the Oval Office.jpg|thumb|left|Frist looks on as President George W. Bush signs the North Korea Nonproliferation Act of 2006 into law.
Over the course of his 12 years in the Senate, his committee assignments included: Committee on Finance, Committee on Health, Education, and Pensions, Committee on Rules and Administration, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Committee on Labor and Human Resources, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Committee on Foreign Relations, Committee on Small Business, and Committee on the Budget.
He served as chairman of the Subcommittee on Disability Policy, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on African Affairs, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety, chairman of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space, and chairman of the Budget Committee Task Force on Education.
As the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he helped Republicans win back the Senate in the 2002 midterm election. His committee collected $66.4 million for 2001–2002, 50% more than the previous year.