William Harrison Frist (born February 22, 1952 in Nashville, Tennessee) is a U.S. Senator from Tennessee. Since 2003, he has served as Senate Majority Leader. He is frequently mentioned as a potential candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and won a straw poll victory at the 2006 Southern Republican Leadership conference.

Childhood and Medical Career

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 the degree of 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.

Entering Politics

In 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.

Personal Life

Frist has been married to his wife, Karyn, whom he met at a Boston emergency hospital, since 1982. They have three sons; Harrison, Jonathan, and Bryan. As of 2005, Harrison is a senior at Princeton University, Jonathan is a freshman at Vanderbilt University, and Bryan is a senior at St. Albans School in Washington D.C., planning to attend Princeton University. The Frist family are members of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington D.C..

Frist has been a pilot since the age of 16. He holds commercial, instrument and multi-engine ratings. He has also run seven marathons and two half-marathons.

In June, 1989, Frist published his first book, Transplant: A Heart Surgeon’s Account of the Life-And-Death Dramas of the New Medicine. With J.H. Helderman, he edited “Grand Rounds in Transplantation” in 1995. In October, 1999, Frist co-authored Tennessee Senators, 1911-2001: Portraits of Leadership in a Century of Change with J. Lee Annis, Jr. In March, 2002, Frist published his third book, When Every Moment Counts: What You Need to Know About Bioterrorism from the Senate’s Only Doctor.

Official Site: www.volpac.org

Biography Source: Wikipedia

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