It’s 5 a.m. on Father’s Day and my friend, Leana Wen, is sipping coffee as she eases our car onto the highway en route to her next appointment. The physician, Washington Post opinions columnist, CNN wellness medical expert, author, and public health scholar is off to another early morning event for which she is well prepared: a sprint triathlon in Columbia, Maryland.
At 41, Dr. Wen has sandwiched miles of swimming, long runs, and bike rides into her life while also juggling speaking engagements, board meetings, and two columns a week on public health and health policy including her newsletter “The Checkup with Dr. Wen.”
Somehow, she has also found time to persuade me to do my first triathlon—a 400-yard pool swim followed by a 10-mile bike ride and a 3-mile run. She even helped me train. Has she always been able to manage such an ambitious schedule?
“I don’t think of myself as especially driven,” she says. “I like setting goals and doing what I promised that I would do. My personal life is not that different from my professional life. I’ve always loved my work. I’m passionate about it because of my experiences growing up as an immigrant, as someone who saw many people go without access to care, as someone who experienced some of those problems myself, and as a clinician on behalf of my patients. I think my professional work is all driven by seeing a problem and then wanting to fix it.”
Born in Shanghai, Dr. Wen came to the United States when she was nearly eight years old with her parents who eventually received political asylum. Even though her mother and father often worked several jobs, the family received food stamps and at times struggled to afford housing.