I’ve known of Dr. Leana Wen for a long time. But it was during the COVID-19 pandemic that I began to read her columns regularly. I found her recommendations to be practical and based on the lived experiences of individuals. 

“Public health saved your life today ― you just don’t know it,” is a phrase she likes to use. You don’t know it because good public health is visible only in its absence, when it is underfunded and ignored, a bitter truth laid bare as never before by the devastation of COVID-19.

In this piece, she writes about Boston Medical Center and its long history of addressing Social Determinants of Health.

I attend appointments twice a month at Boston Medical Center with a woman who became a client in 2007. We are continuously impressed by the services, and when we go to several of her physicians’ offices, we can see the rooftop garden. I loved reading about the history of the garden, the impact it has on so many, and how the hospital is treating food as medicine.