The High Meadows Environmental Institute will host a lecture by Sen. Bill Frist, M.D., a member of the Class of 1974. 

“After decades in medicine, I’ve learned that planetary and human health are inseparable,” says Frist. “The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the environment we live in directly shape our well-being. When these systems are degraded, our health suffers. It’s time we reframe climate change and biodiversity loss for what they truly are: not just environmental threats but escalating human health crises.” 

This event is part of the HMEI Taplin Environmental Lecture Series, and is free and open to the public. 

Speaker

Sen. William H. Frist is a heart and lung transplant surgeon and former United States Senate majority leader and serves as chair of the global board of the Nature Conservancy, the largest conservation organization in the world. A leading authority on healthcare, Frist speaks nationally on health policy, global health and the intersection of climate, biodiversity and human health. Frist represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate from 1995 to 2007 and served as Senate majority leader from 2003 to 2007. His leadership was instrumental in the passage of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act and the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005, which promotes worldwide access to safe and clean water. He serves on the steering committee of the National Academy of Medicine’s Grand Challenge on Climate Change, Human Health, and Equity and co-chairs NAM’s Action Collaborative on Decarbonizing the U.S. Health Sector, in addition to co-chairing the National Commission on Climate and Workforce Health. 

He is founder and chairman of community health collaborative NashvilleHealth, the Tennessee-based State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), and global health non-profit Hope Through Healing Hands. As founder of the Vanderbilt Multi-Organ Transplant Center (today the busiest heart transplant center in the world), he performed more than 150 heart and lung transplants and authored more than 100 peer-reviewed medical articles. Frist and his wife Tracy established the Senator Bill and Tracy Frist Initiative for Planetary and Human Health within The Nature Conservancy, a transformative initiative focused on driving solutions that concurrently improve planetary and human health. They live on their historic farm in Franklin, Tennessee.