To give you a picture of who the new president of Planned Parenthood is, we scoured a number of sources and pieced together this timeline:
1983 Born January 27, 1983 (now 35 years old)
1996 Entered California State University, Los Angeles (at age 13)
2001 Graduated from Cal State LA Summa Cum Laude
2002 Entered Washington University in St. Louis medical school
2005 Wen took a one-year leave of absence from medical school to serve as the national president of the American Medical Student Association. She was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services to serve on the Council on Graduate Medical Education, an advisory commission to Congress.
2007 Graduated Washington University in St. Louis medical school
2009 Completed 2-years of Masters Programs (an Master of Science in Economic and Social History and an Master of Science in Modern Chinese Studies) at Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar)
2010 Wen served as chair of the Young Professionals Council, a global leadership network of medical, nursing, and public health professionals.
2010 - 2013 Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency at Brigham & Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital—was in ER on day of bombings of the Boston marathon.
2013 St. Martin's Press published her book, When Doctors Don't Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests.
2013 - 2014 Served as the Director of Patient-Centered Care Research, Attending Physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine, and Assistant Professor of Health Policy in the Milken School of Public Health, at George Washington University. She also co-directed the Residency Fellowship in Health Policy and co-led a new national collaboration on health policy and social mission with Kaiser Permanente.
She served as a consultant to the Brookings Institution and the China Medical Board, and conducted international health systems research including in South Africa, Slovenia, Nigeria, Singapore, and China.
2015 Appointed Health Commissioner by mayor of the City of Baltimore
2016 Re-appointed as Health Commissioner by new mayor
2018 Will be president of PPFA effective November 12
She speaks around the world on patient empowerment, healthcare reform, and Who’s My Doctor, a campaign she founded that aims for transparency in medicine.
By all accounts, Dr. Wen is a truly smart professional who quickly moved up the ranks of healthcare professionals until she became the “Doctor for the City” in Baltimore, MD. While there for the last two-plus years, she launched many new efforts and was highly regarded. Perhaps it was an opportunity to head the organization she patronized during her high school and college years when she was relieved at a negative pregnancy test. Or, maybe it was the lure of money. As Health Commissioner in Baltimore, Wen was paid $212,000 a year. Her predecessor at Planned Parenthood received total income of $744,833 in 2017. Of course, Cecile Richards had to oversee an organization that committed 321,384 abortions last year to get that much—but money is money.