Bill Frist, M.D.

Healthier people. Healthier planet.
Global Board Chair Emeritus @nature_org
Former Senate Majority Leader
Physician | Husband | Dad | Papa

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

As a doctor, I would never diagnose a patient from one test alone. I follow the full body of evidence.

Earth’s warming is measured by satellites, weather stations, oceans, tree rings, and ice cores. The oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat.

Different methods, all converging on the same conclusion.

#MythDiagnosis

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

A BioBlitz turns curiosity into a scientific baseline. On our farm, 12 teams spent 24 hours documenting every living thing they could find, uploading to iNaturalist as they went.

Have you ever joined a BioBlitz or used iNaturalist?
#SinkingCreekFieldNotes

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Twenty-three years ago today, on the Senate floor, I asked every American to take a moment of silence and look for those who have answered the call to courage.

That request still stands. Today, we honor our veterans and the freedom they carried forward.

#VeteransDay

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

@SenAlexander has been a governor, Secretary of Education and senator. At @MTSU, I asked my close friend how he got started.

“I had three really good mentors”: Howard Baker, Judge John Minor Wisdom and Bryce Harlow.

Read more about what each taught him today in Substack: https://t.co/fc6ao7V96m

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Every discovery begins with a place. Ours is the Farm at Sinking Creek in Southwest Virginia, where ridges, forests, pastures, wetlands and clear streams each hold part of the land's story.

What landscape has taught you to look more closely?

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

@TIME See the full list of TIME100 Climate 2026 listmakers here: https://t.co/OvyyGzD6dC

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

The world around us shapes the health within us. That idea has guided my work for years, and today @TIME named me to the 2026 TIME100 Climate list, its annual list of the 100 most influential leaders in climate.

Proud to be included alongside leaders from around the world who are working to protect the health of people and the planet.

Photo credit: Hamilton Matthew Masters

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Five of us. 85 years in elected office. One dinner after Election Day.

With Govs. @BillHaslam and @PhilBredesen and @SenAlexander and @SenBobCorker at the Howard Baker Policy Summit, talking Tennessee’s next decade.

Howard Baker’s lesson holds: consider that the other fellow might be right. @UTBakerSchool

Photo: Emily Loden

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

Tune into @PBS station WNPT Ch. 8.1 (@nashvillepbs) tonight, Friday, November 6th, from 9:30 PM to 11, to watch Sen. Lamar Alexander’s October 19 interview with Sen. Bill Frist (@bfrist) at the Tucker Theatre on @MTSU's campus about his New York Times best-selling memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, and his and Sen. Frist’s time in public service.

During the interview, they recount how Sen. Alexander was sworn in as Governor of Tennessee three days early, how working together helped pass the 21st Century Cures Act, and how Sen. Frist went from being one of the nation's leading heart surgeons to a Senator. They also discussed the difference in Senate campaigns from 2002 to today, bipartisanship in public life, and the issues the next generation of leaders are facing.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/T1quO5EVwp.

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

@segrasslands @inaturalist @KylePlantNative I wrote more about what the scientists found, and what it taught us about caring for land, in Forbes this week: https://t.co/OjLjpYE7iy

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Tracy has cared for our farm for more than 26 years. One day with scientists showed us how much we still didn’t know.

Their work pushed the farm past 1,000 documented species.

Episode 1 of Sinking Creek Field Notes. What would you most want to discover on land you love?

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

“He makes Nixon look like a choir boy,” said one Democrat state senator after headlines announced that Tennessee Gov. Ray Blanton had signed pardons for 52 of Tennessee’s most notorious prisoners, murderers, rapists, and robbers, including Roger Humphreys. In chapter 2 of my memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JKF TO TRUMP, I write about how Blanton’s promise to pardon Humphreys helped make me his successor.

One month earlier, in December 1978, FBI agents arrested Edward “Eddie” Sisk, Gov. Blanton’s legal counsel. On that same morning, Tennessee’s retiring first lady, Betty Blanton, was giving a tour of the governor’s residence to her successor, Honey Alexander.

“I’m sorry. There is no way I can take you to look at the master bedroom upstairs because the governor and his advisers are meeting in there,” Mrs. Blanton had said to Honey. The governor had much to discuss in that meeting. The indictments accused Blanton’s chief of security and his extradition officer, as well as Sisk, of twenty-six instances of selling clemencies for cash. There were videotapes to prove it.

“How much would it cost to spring James Earl Ray?” an FBI informant had asked Blanton’s chief of security on one videotape as they sat under surveillance in a Memphis motel room.

Ray was serving ninety-nine years in Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary for the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. US Attorney Hardin, who was overhearing the taping in an adjacent room, had suggested the informant try a Hail Mary to test how far the governor’s corrupt aides were willing to go. “Whew, I don’t know. That’s pretty hot. What about $75,000 for an escape?” the chief of security said, according to Hardin. These events reached a crescendo on Monday, January 15 (the day of the surprise opinion), prompting the governor to drive to the Capitol to pardon Humphreys and fifty-one others.

As Tennesseans awoke to Tuesday’s news, you could almost hear explosions of anger popping, house by house. The governor’s new counsel, Robert Lillard, said that there would be as many as eighteen more pardons before the governor left office, and that there was one big name in the group.

Rumors spread that the one big name was James Earl Ray.

You can watch my full discussion with Bill Frist (@bfrist) at @MTSU on YouTube here: https://t.co/U0JYQxx3Hp. It will also be airing on @PBS station WNPT Ch.8.1 Nashville this Friday, November 6, from 9:30 PM to 11.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/cVj7nEA0vI.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

“That’s one time I’ve seen a pure example of people taking politics and throwing it aside,” said Hayes Cooney, the state deputy attorney general, about the day of my early swearing-in. In Chapters 1 and 2 of my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I write about how the participants in that bipartisan boot camp learned other lessons.

We communicated carefully, repeating conversations or rereading a joint statement out loud to one another. We relied on the advice of senior state attorneys and the local federal attorney. We tried to put the best interests of citizens before our own. We avoided placing each other in awkward political positions.

Our actions encouraged our successors in both political parties to work together over the next forty years. Neighbors took notice.

On Friday evening, October 26, 2018, United States Senator Doug Jones, an Alabama Democrat, addressed a national convention of US attorneys in Nashville.

“Our challenge…is to demand…that our public officials and candidates do…as Hal [Hardin] did and as…Lamar Alexander and the cadre of Tennessee Democrats did that January afternoon in 1979—to put state and country above political party. As you can see…in this incredible city of Nashville, the results can be downright amazing.“

Will there be leaders willing to participate in future bipartisan boot camps? I believe the answer is “yes”—if the next generation is nourished in communities where children learn to work well together, to respect public service—and that, for them, anything is possible.

You can watch my full discussion with Bill Frist (@bfrist) at @MTSU on YouTube here: https://t.co/U0JYQxx3Hp. It will also be airing on @PBS station WNPT Ch.8.1 Nashville this Friday, November 6, from 9:30 PM to 11.

In THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP, I paint portraits of the presidents I worked with, tell stories about what I saw behind the scenes, and recount the lessons I learned about American politics and our country’s future.

THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP is out now from @PostHillPress.

You can use this link to order: https://t.co/cVj7nEA0vI.

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

In today’s Myth Diagnosis: “Climate change doesn’t affect infectious disease.”

Truth: Florida has 350+ locally acquired dengue cases this year, and the mosquitoes that carry it live in Tennessee too.

Diagnosis: Old diseases, new territory.

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

As a doctor, I recognized it at once: environmental DNA is a blood test for a watershed.

Water samples from our farm’s creek revealed 27 wild species, 15 of them fish.

What our @segrasslands BioBlitz taught us about measuring conservation, today in @Forbes: https://t.co/OqIQtg5Ajk

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Being first means helping to set the standard. To me, that standard is whether the work lasts after we step away.

Thank you @CNMnashville and @FirstHorizonBnk for the inaugural Hall of Excellence Award, and Mark Yancy and Gretchen Funk for accepting on my behalf.

No one saves a life alone, and no one changes a community alone. Congratulations to @nashhealthorg on the Community Impact Award for Heart of Nashville, and to every honoree. Our community is better because of you.

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

It’s Election Day, Tennessee. Your vote is your voice in how our communities, our state, and our country move forward.

If you haven’t already, find your polling place, bring your photo ID, and make it count: https://t.co/m3zB3wyav4

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

We opened our farm to science. In 24 hours, scientists helped us surpass more than 1,000 species documented at our Farm at Sinking Creek in Virginia. It was Tracy’s idea, and over the coming weeks we’ll share what they found.

What would you hope to discover on your own land?

@segrasslands

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Most states have a vision for AI in schools. Few have put it into practice.

@CRPE_edu research in @The74 names Tennessee’s @SCORE_TN a national model for closing that gap. Proud of @davemansouri and the SCORE team.

What’s working in your school?

https://t.co/3wv9GCrrnE

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Tracy and I are wishing everyone a safe and happy Halloween!

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

In 1978, a Lascassas mom told @SenAlexander her smart twin boys would never find a job around there. Twenty-five years later, one of them was running the Nissan plant.

My favorite story from our @MTSU conversation. More in today's Substack: https://t.co/mbbaCvDinm