Welcome to Season 4 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I'm Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a former Commissioner of Health in Baltimore City.

Our goal is to bring

scientific evidence and experience to current topics in public health through engaging interviews

with scientists, community leaders, policy experts, public health officials, clinicians, and more.

If you have ideas or questions for us to cover, please email us at public health question at jhhhu.edu.

That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer for Public Health on Call.

Today, Dr. Josh Sharstein welcomes a special guest, the Assistant Secretary for Health, Admiral Rachel Levine.

They discuss the role of the Assistant Secretary, key priorities for her work and what it's like to be the first transgender four-star Admiral in all of the uniform services.

Let's listen.

It is my absolute pleasure to welcome the Assistant Secretary for Health of the Department

of Health and Human Services, Admiral Dr. Rachel Levine, to Public Health on Call.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

So before we get into the job you do for the federal government, I just wanted to ask you to introduce yourself to our listeners.

Well, thank you. So I'm Admiral Rachel Levine. So I am a four-star Admiral for the Public Health Service commissioned Corps.

And that is absolutely an honor and a privilege.

I'm also the Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services

and have the pleasure and privilege of serving under Secretary Bacera.

And, you know, we concentrate on medical and public health issues

and on the principal advisor to the secretary previously I was the physician general and

...