The BMJ Interview: Rachel Levine on the greatest challenges in US health

Rachel Levine’s appointment to the senior ranks of US healthcare was global news in 2021 when the paediatrician became the first transgender person in the country’s history to be confirmed into office by the US Senate and to be made a four star admiral in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

For Levine it was the culmination of a career that began at Harvard and was most recently based in Pennsylvania, the location of one of the country’s worst opioid crises. She issued a state-wide standing order for the overdose reversal drug naloxone, allowing police officers to carry the drug and citizens to purchase it without a prescription. “As a young person, I found my passion in serving through medicine and in medical school and in my training,” she tells The BMJ. “I have always found my career tremendously rewarding because, as a physician, all we try to do is help people.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.