Today went by much faster than the past two days, as life was breathed back into the General Assembly after a long weekend. However, it was clear very early in the day that it wasn’t going to be an ideal situation, with the AC being broken the whole day. Apparently the part is being shipped from California so hopefully tomorrow it’ll be cooler. Although I had Session, and a few meetings to sit in on, the main highlight of the day was speaking to Mary Beth Wooten, who works at the Department of Health and Human Services over the phone. Like I stated yesterday, Mr. Hailey set up the call when Rep. Martin found out that I had a possible interest in public health. Ms. Wooten began by telling me the difference between public health and just health. That public health was assessing the health of a population, which ranged from communicable diseases to passing laws about smoking in restaurants to the fluoride in the tap water. She explained to me how her experience in clinical practice translates well to her job in DHHS. But she also suggested other ways of becoming a public health professional. She told me about how she works with the various departments within DHHS, such as women and children and epidemiology. She also spoke about how involved the DHHS has to be in politics. With each new healthcare plan comes adjusted funding for their department, so they have to remain vigilant about future legislation, on a national and state level. The DHHS has many lesions to the General Assembly who are advocating for the DHHS. Overall, my conversation with Ms. Wooten was very informative and very interesting to hear about from a person currently working as a public health professional.