Born and raised in New Orleans, I was born on November 18, 1963, with an irregular heartbeat which led to me developing asthma. Throughout my toddler and pre-adolescent years, I had to use a breathing machine then advanced to an inhaler. After each visit to the doctor’s office, I became fascinated more and more about health and the medical field as well as knowing that they were helping to better the lives of children which I thought was so important to have in a career. At the very early age of four, I realized that I wanted to be a doctor. I knew that I wanted to be a pediatrician but also felt like I should have another specialty as well. Once I entered high school, I realized that I wanted to be a pediatrician and neonatologist. I chose to also be a neonatologist because I found the study of neonatology to be extremely interesting and personal for me since I spent some of my time when I first entered into the world in the NICU because of my irregular heartbeat.

The summer before I entered the ninth grade, I became a candy stripper at the Children’s Hospital of New Orleans and continued in the program until I graduated from high school. Every summer, I did a range of activities involving the health sciences ranging from taking a biology class at the local university to spending a summer at Northwestern University as part of a leadership conference training students who were interested in the medical field.

After graduating from high school in 1981, I attended Occidental College where I was a pre-med major and minored in political science and received my B.S. in 1985, along with being a distinguished honor student. I then attended medical school at Johns Hopkins University and received my M.D. in 1992. After working as a pediatrician and neonatologist at the Children’s Hospital of Baltimore for six years, I decided to bring my two sons, Daniel and David, and husband, Denzel Washington, with me to England to attend the University of Oxford to receive a Ph. D. in chemistry. After spending eleven years living in England, we returned to Baltimore which we now reside in and was elected Senator of Maryland for the 110th Congress.

Today, I continue to fight for more options and the expansion of government healthcare programs to ensure that the millions of children who are uninsured in this nation have the ability to enroll and stay enrolled in a program so they can live long, healthy lives. As senator, it is my responsibility to provide the great state of Maryland with all that they deserve. The voices of my constituents shall be heard and taken into account as an elected official. My primary focus is providing all children with quality health insurance and helping to improve both this state and the country.