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Frist to speak at commencement Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee is scheduled to speak at MUSC's 176th commencement.   Commencement ceremonies will begin at 9 a.m. on Friday, May 20, on the MUSC horseshoe. Approximately 740 students will receive degrees from the university’s six colleges.   Sen. Bill Frist First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1994, Frist was the first practicing physician elected to the Senate since 1928. In November 2000 Frist was elected to a second term by the largest vote total ever received by a candidate for statewide election in the history of Tennessee.   Frist graduated in 1974 from Princeton University where he specialized in health care policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In 1978, he graduated with honors from Harvard Medical School and spent the next seven years in surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital; Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, England; and Stanford University Medical Center. He is board certified in both general surgery and heart surgery.   In 1985, Frist joined the faculty at Vanderbilt University Medical Center where he founded and subsequently directed the multi-disciplinary Vanderbilt Transplant Center, which under his leadership became a nationally-renowned center of multi-organ transplantation. A heart and lung surgeon, he performed more than 150 heart and lung transplant procedures, including the first successful combined heart-lung transplant in the Southeast.     Frist is particularly passionate about confronting the global AIDS pandemic. He frequently takes medical mission trips to Africa to perform surgery and care for those in need. As Senate Majority Leader, he continues to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS crisis throughout the world   He currently serves on the following: the Senate Finance; Rules; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees. In 2001, he was named one of two Congressional representatives to the United Nations General Assembly.   Scheduled to receive honorary degrees at MUSC commencement are: Wade T. Batson Jr., Ph.D., distinguished professor emeritus, Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina; Robert “Casey” Fitts, M.D., medical director Tri-County Project CARE; Paul W. Garfinkel, J.D., judge, the Family Court of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, South Carolina; Patricia A. Grady, Ph.D., R.N., director, National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institutes of Health; Glenn F. McConnell, J.D., president pro tempore, South Carolina Senate; Julius F. Scott, coordinator, Charleston County Juvenile Drug Court; and Eugene A. Stead Jr., M.D. former chair, Department of Medicine, Emory University and former dean, School of Medicine, Duke University (in absentia).     Friday, April 29, 2005 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to petersnd@musc.edu or catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Community Press at 849-1778.