Dr. Bernadine Healy was named Thursday to head the American Red Cross, filling the position from which Elizabeth Dole resigned to pursue presidential aspirations.
Healy, 54, is a heart specialist who will be the first physician to lead the 118-year-old organization. She also has harbored political hopes, trying in 1994 to win the Republican Party’s Senate nomination in Ohio.
A former head of the National Institutes of Health, she now is dean of the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health.
On Thursday, Norman Augustine, chairman of the Red Cross Board of Governors, praised her record in government and academia and as a fundraiser at Ohio State, considered to be valuable experience for an organization that spends $2 billion a year and relies on contributions for more than 30 percent of its revenue.
She will take over the Red Cross full-time in September.
She was a controversial figure at NIH, where her tenure was marked by internal struggles and battles with Congress. At one point, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) accused Healy of interfering with investigations of two NIH scientists accused of research fraud.
