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Nina C. Rawlings, MD
Growing up in East Baltimore, as the 2nd of nine children, education was always stressed as the key to success to Nina, by her parents. She was always encouraged to be of help to others, whether helping around the home with her younger brothers and sisters or by doing errands for the elderly neighbors. She decided to become "a children's doctor" at an early age after seeing her older sister suffer with Rheumatic fever and numerous hospitalizations. She was never deterred from this goal although helpful adults often pointed out that they knew of no black female doctor.
Nina completed Paul Laurence Dunbar High School and attended Morgan State College (now Morgan State University) on scholarship. It was at Morgan, also, that Nina met Pete in their physics and calculus classes. Little did she know that a long and happy marriage, including three lovely children would follow a note shyly handed to her asking "Miss Cole, may I please call you sometime?", signed Mr. Rawlings. Nina and Pete were married in 1960 with Pete's promise to help her dream to attend medical school and become a doctor become a reality.
Nina entered the University of Maryland Medical School in 1962 and graduated in the class of 1966. Both Nina and Pete (the late Del. Howard P. Rawlings) had grown up during segregation years and this influenced Pete�s work in civil rights activism and eventually into politics. They shared 43 years of marriage and enjoyed see their 3 children, Lisa, Stephanie and Wendell forge their own efforts to fulfill their dreams. They actively participated in all phases of their children's lives, piano recitals, tennis matches, basketball games, dance recitals, even college weekends.
It was at the college weekend at Oberlin College in 1991 with her daughter Stephanie (i.e. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake) that Nina discovered a breast lump after sleeping on a "rock hard" dorm bed. The lump turned out to positive, requiring radical mastectomy and chemotherapy. Using work with her young pediatric patients as therapy, Dr. Rawlings was able to continue her pediatrics practice with minimal interruption, and thanks to her ever alert parents, not one single child asked her head was bald!
Nina enjoyed 36 years of medical practice and is a 20 year survivor enjoying fellowship with family, friends and especially her "little buddy" of 7 years, grand-daughter Sophia Rawlings-Blake. If asked her best advice re cancer survival, she would say, "practice breast self exams regularly and follow recommended regiments of treatment."
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