Richard Charles Wender, MD

I am a board-certified family physician and have spent most of my career working to increase access to high-quality primary care for people who are uninsured or underinsured, as well as working to pass and implement policies and systems changes that build health equity. I previously served as a family physician and clinical director in the Philadelphia city health centers, as Chief Medical Officer of a large federally qualified/migrant health center in New Jersey, as Director of the Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, and as Health Commissioner of Philadelphia from 2021-2024. As a faculty member in Penn's Department of Family Medicine & Community Health and Director of Public Health Integration for Penn Medicine, I will be working collaboratively with colleagues across the health system and the university and with community stakeholders to develop new strategies and expand existing successful work to decrease early deaths in West and Southwest Philadelphia, as laid out in Penn Medicine's strategic plan.

I specialize in pulmonary and critical care medicine with clinical expertise in asthma, including advanced therapies such as biological therapy and bronchial thermoplasty, chronic cough, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). I received my medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine, completed an Internal Medicine residency at Barnes-Jewish Hospital – Washington University, St. Louis, and completed my fellowship in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. I have been caring for patients with asthma for over 10 years and see patients in the Harron Lung Center at Penn Medicine in University City.