Bill Frist, M.D.

Chair, The Nature Conservancy, Fmr U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Heart Transplant Surgeon, NashvilleHealth @nashhealthorg, Builder of Healthcare Companies

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Myth: Downpours have always happened. Rainfall isn’t changing.

Truth: Warmer air holds more moisture — about 4% more per 1°F of warming.

When storms form in warmer air, they can produce heavier rainfall.

A nationwide analysis of 1,700 U.S. weather stations shows a clear shift toward heavier rain in recent decades.

When it rains, it pours — more than it used to.

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Yesterday, I joined nearly 90 fellow surgical residents in Boston to remember Les Ottinger, the “wise man” who shaped generations of surgeons at Mass General.

He taught not only surgical skill, but the values and judgment that define a great physician. I was a better surgeon because of him.

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

In 2002, Elton John came before the Senate HELP Committee to urge greater American leadership in the fight against AIDS. One year later, PEPFAR was signed into law.

Today, Elton and I write in @USATODAY about why that leadership still matters.

PEPFAR has saved millions of lives. But progress is not permanence. We have come too far to retreat now.

Read our op-ed here: https://t.co/wEgvMk85qk

[Elton John AIDS Foundation @ejaf]

What's missing in the fight to end AIDS isn't science, funding, or public support - it's political will. Elton John & @bfrist explain why now is the moment to act and protect PEPFAR's lifesaving impact. The end of AIDS is within reach. The choice is ours. https://t.co/toPqIj8zen

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Last week, I sat down with my friend @ScottGottliebMD and @AEI for a wide-ranging conversation on FDA modernization, pandemic preparedness, AI in medicine, public trust, and the next wave of cell and gene therapies.

American medicine is at an inflection point. The question is whether our institutions and policy frameworks can keep up.

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Protecting the natural world is one of the most powerful prescriptions we have for a healthier future.

I wrote more in Forbes on what planetary health really means, and why it belongs at the center of human flourishing: https://t.co/4IIt5HFKRs

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

The world around us shapes the health within us.

Here’s what a career in the operating room taught me about where disease really begins, and why nature may be one of our most powerful prescriptions:

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Medicine at its best has always aimed beyond rescue.

Toward prevention. Toward causes. Toward intervening before damage becomes irreversible.

Nature belongs in that same frame.

[Lamar Alexander @SenAlexander]

In my new memoir, THE EDUCATION OF A SENATOR: FROM JFK TO TRUMP (now available online and in bookstores), I write about the dim view my friend Delmar Caylor, a Townsend, Tennessee, homebuilder, had of my job as a US Senator. “I’d rather have my job any day, crawling under your house to find a dead rat, than your job working up there in Washington, D.C.,” Delmar told me. “If I had your job, I would’ve had a fist fight every day.” That’s why in my book I tell the story of Bill Frist leaving his job as one of the world’s leading heart-lung transplant surgeons to become a senator—because instead of saving one life at a time, he hoped that he could save a million lives.

Frist and I both learned that although you can do great things in private life, the best way to unleash the potential of this country to help the most people and to help our republic survive is to spend some time in public life. It is worth all the indignities to be able to say, as I often did, that I woke up every day as governor or senator thinking I might be able to do something good for my state or country and went to bed most nights thinking that I had.

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 available now from @PostHillPress.

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

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

We talk about food in terms of what to avoid.
That's the wrong question.

Food is not fuel. It is biological information. And what our system stripped away is the real problem: fiber, healthy fats, microbial diversity, real nourishment. Ultra-processed foods distort metabolism, inflammation, and the microbiome. The consequences show up in our bodies, our communities, our environment.

Diagnosis: built for shelf life and profit, not health. Prescription: ask what food restores.

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

This hangs over my desk.

A framed copy of the bill that created PEPFAR. A commemorative pen. A note from President George W. Bush dated May 29, 2003.

I keep it there because it reminds me that democracy is not abstract. It is the hard, imperfect work of turning conviction into law.

I brought the bill to the Senate floor at 2:00 p.m. I did not know whether it would take a day, a week, or months. By 2:00 a.m., after 12 hours of debate, the Senate passed it by voice vote.

PEPFAR was not inevitable.

It required listening, persuasion, moral clarity, bipartisan resolve, presidential leadership, and a belief that American leadership could help save lives far beyond our own borders.

That belief became law. And that law helped save millions of lives. This is what democracy can do.

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

PEPFAR remains a powerful reminder of what America can make possible when we lead with compassion, resolve, and a commitment to saving lives.

Read the full backstory today on Substack: https://t.co/br8cUoubEf

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

More than 26 million people are alive today because of PEPFAR.

Tomorrow marks 23 years since America came together to confront one of the greatest public health crises of our time.

Here’s the story:

[Bill Frist, M.D. @bfrist]

Twenty-three years later, PEPFAR’s legacy is not abstract. It is human.

Mothers lived.
Children grew up with parents.
Families stayed whole.
Hope was restored.