Bill Frist - Biography

Last Editor: lola_vt_				Bill Frist Biography -   Name : Bill Frist Profession : Politician Birth Details : born February 22, 1952 in Nashville, Tennessee Birth name : William Harrison Frist Spouse : Karyn McLaughlin (1982 - present) 3 children

Bill Frist Trivia -

U.S. Senator from Tennessee (1995- ). Majority leader of the U.S. Senate (2003- ).

Bill Frist Detailed Biography -

Born: February 22, 1952 Nashville, Tennessee Died: Spouse: Karyn Frist William Harrison Frist, M.D. (born February 22, 1952 in Nashville, Tennessee) is a Republican U.S. Senator from Tennessee, a cardiac surgeon. Since 2003, he has served as Senate Majority Leader. He is frequently mentioned as a potential candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Frist is a fourth-generation Tennessean. His great-great grandfather was one of the founders of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and his father was a doctor. Frist graduated from Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee and then from Princeton University in 1974, where he specialized in health care policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In 1972 he held a summer internship with Tennessee Congressman Joe Evins, who advised Frist that if he wanted to pursue a political career, he should first have a career outside of politics. Frist proceeded to Harvard Medical School, where he received a Doctor of Medicine with honors in 1978. Frist joined the lab of W. John Powell Jr., M.D., at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1977, where he continued his training in cardiovascular physiology. He left the lab in 1978 to become a resident in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1983 he spent time at Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, England as 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 senior fellow and chief resident in cardiac transplant service and cardiothoracic surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine. After completing his fellowship, he became a faculty member at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he began a heart and lung transplantation program. He also became staff surgeon at the Nashville Veterans Administration Hospital. In 1989, he founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center. He is currently licensed as a physician, and is certified in general surgery and heart surgery. He has performed over 150 heart transplants and lung transplants, including pediatric heart transplants and combined heart and lung transplants. Controversy over medical school experiments Main article: Bill Frist medical school experiments controversy While in medical school, Frist obtained cats from animal shelters, under pretense of adoption as pets, for school research experiments in which he killed the animals. In a 1989 autobiography, Frist described his deception in obtaining these shelter cats as "heinous and dishonest". He attributed his behavior to the pressures of school. The incident sparked controversy after a 2002 Boston Globe story repeated the account. Since 1989, Senator Frist has received over $271,000 dollars in gifts and donations from pharmaceutical companies. Though he was a public policy major in college, Frist was late to take an interest in politics; he did not vote for the first time until he was 36. In 1990, he met with former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker about the possibilities of public office. Baker advised him to pursue the Senate, and in 1992 suggested that Frist begin preparations for a U.S. Senate election, 1994. Frist began to build support. He served on Tennessee's Governor's Medicaid Task Force from 1992 to 1993, the Republican National Committee's Health Care Coalition's National Steering Committee, George H.W. Bush-Dan Quayle '92, and was deputy director of the Tennessee Bush-Quayle '92 campaign. As part of Frist's preparations for political office, in December 1993 he ended his membership in Nashville, Tennessee's racially segregated Belle Meade Country Club, which he had joined in the 1980s following family tradition. During his first campaign, Frist repeatedly accused his opponent, incumbent Senator Jim Sasser, of "sending Tennessee money to Washington, DC, to Marion Barry ... 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 that campaign, he also attacked Sasser for his attempt 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 incumbent Sasser in the 1994 Republican sweep of both Houses of Congress by 13 points, thus becoming the first physician in the Senate since 1928. There were claims that Frist had used Barry and other symbolic issues to appeal to Tennessee's Southern conservative, white majority; the Frist camp denied it. In U.S. Senate election, 2000, Frist easily won reelection with 66 percent of the vote. He was elected by the largest vote total ever received by a candidate for statewide election in the history of Tennessee, although Al Gore won a higher percentage of the vote (70%) in his 1990 Senate re-election.