Bill Frist

William Harrison Frist (born February 22, 1952) is an American physician, businessman, conservationist and policymaker who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1995 to 2007.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Frist proceeded to Harvard Medical School, where he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine with honors in 1978.

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 Dr. 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.

In 1989, he founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center, which today performs more heart transplants than any other center in the world.

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 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.

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 1994, 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.

This issue became controversial in his first Senate campaign in 1994, and gained national attention after his election to Senate Majority Leader.

In 1995 Frist, then a sitting Senator, successfully resuscitated a constituent suffering a heart attack in the Dirksen Senate Office building.

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.

In 1998, Frist administered emergency aid to victims and the shooter in the 1998 Capital Shooting.

They later ran the Army 10-miler together in 2002 in Washington, DC.

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.

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.

He currently hosts the A Second Opinion Podcast on the intersection of policy, medicine, and innovation.

Frist was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of Dorothy (née Cate) 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 (HCA).