Madam Speaker, this Black History Month, I am celebrating Tampa’s health care heroes. Today I rise in admiration and respect for the public service and leadership of Dr. Dana Darien Glenn, who proudly serves our Veterans as Women’s Center Medical  Director  at the James A. Haley Veterans (VA) Hospitals and Clinics in Tampa, FL. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1966, she relocated to Tampa in 1972 with her family. Her own father, Dr. Glinton Darien, served as a full-time staff dentist at the James A. Haley VA Hospital. Dr. Glenn has followed in his footsteps to serve our Veterans. Dr. Glenn was also influenced by her mother, who is a retired registered nurse. While Dr. Glenn has always had a passion for science and math, building a sense of community for her patients started at a young age when she would accompany her father, a deacon, as he visited the ill and shut-ins.  

The youngest of three children, she attended Hillsborough County Public Schools, graduating with honors from Leto High School. She then earned her associate’s degree and graduated with honors from Hillsborough Community College. She completed her bachelor’s degree with honors from the University of Florida in 1988 and her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill School of Medicine in 1993. She returned to Florida to complete the Bayfront Medical Center Family Practice Program. In Tampa, she met and married the love of her life, Vernon Glenn, where they live with their two children, Alana and Theodore.

Prior to joining James A. Haley VA Hospital, Dr. Glenn was a private practitioner for 10 years in Tampa. Part of that time she ran a practice, Glenn Family Health Center, with her husband. Her sense of community transitioned her from private practice to joining the James A. Haley VA Hospital as a full-time staff physician in 2005. She was inspired by the hospital’s patient-aligned care team and less than 10 years later, she would become part of the planning team to open a center solely dedicated to women veterans healthcare, including equipment, supplies and space to ensure gender-specific care. The United States has more than 2 million women veterans, and the number of women using VA health services has more than tripled over the last 20 years. VA hospitals across the nation are adapting to serve the changing demographic – Dr. Glenn is part of this history of transition. The James A. Haley VA Hospital currently serves approximately 12,000 female Veterans. 

Dr. Glenn is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and she is a member of the American Medical Association.  Her list of past awards and honors include Finalist for VA Woman of the Year Award, Young Leader Award by the Florida Academy of Family Physicians, Charles Aucremann Art of Medicine Award, M.A. Barton Award for Best Medical Paper, Outstanding Presentation, Research Day, and Commonwealth Fund/Bristol-Myers Squibb Fellowship in Academic Research. Her professional and community services include: VA National Women’s Health Services Mini-Residency Faculty participating in national and local lectures to train women’s health staff as well as Affiliate Assistant Professor at USF Health Morsani College of Medicine teaching internal medicine residents.  She has been a volunteer speaker at numerous church-based community health programs focusing on women’s health issues. 

Dr. Glenn is passionate about helping people achieve their highest level of health and wellness. She is especially encouraged about opportunities to effectuate positive changes in the African American community disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and in multiple chronic disease/health outcome measures as well as underrepresented in leadership roles in medicine. 

Her personal mission statement is based on her favorite Bible verse, Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live,  but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith  in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” 

Madam Speaker, on behalf of a grateful nation in the midst of a public health crisis and the Tampa Bay community, I am proud to recognize the service and leadership of Dr. Dana Glenn, as well as her eternal optimism guided by her personal faith.