Dirt road to the health care highway

This story was published in the spring 2025 issue of 12th & Marshall. You can find the current and past issues online.

Girls are nurses. Boys are doctors.

At least that’s what Elizabeth Rice Martin, M.D., Class of 98, thought growing up in rural Farnham, Va., on the Northern Neck where “almost no one went into medicine,” she said.

Her perception changed in high school when she was accepted into a six-week medical governor’s school program on the MCV Campus. “I realized, ‘yes, I can be a doctor,’” said Martin, who went on to earn her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia.

“When it came time to apply to medical schools, there was no place I wanted to be other than VCU,” she said.

Radiologist William H. Brewer, M.D., a housestaff alum of 1977, served as Martin’s advisor during governor’s school and later as her mentor.

“He supported my desire to become a physician when I wasn’t sure I could do it coming from a small high school,” said Martin, who now lives in Roanoke, Virginia.

Today, she has found her own way to inspire young people.

In 2023, she wrote the children’s book, “Hospitals, Healthcare, Helicopters and More: Let’s Get Ready to Explore,” to spark early interest in health science careers.

“Kids without access or means are not dreaming of being doctors or nurses or X-ray technologists,” Martin explained. “They’re dreaming of graduating from high school. Books are a way for people to imagine the possibilities.”

Martin channeled her inner Dr. Seuss when writing the book, journeying through the hospital to meet lab technicians, pharmacists, doctors, maintenance workers, receptionists, nursing aides and others. “It was important to me to also show jobs where you didn’t need to go to college,” she said.

The book is bilingual in both English and Spanish, thanks to support from the Claude Moore Foundation, Blue Ridge Partnership for Health Science Careers, Virginia Cooperative Extension and Turn the Page, a Roanoke nonprofit Martin helped found. In addition, through a partnership with the VCU Health Pauley Heart Center and Pauley Society donors, more than 1,500 preschool-age children and their families throughout central Virginia have received copies of Martin’s children’s book.

Together with Turn the Page, Martin also spearheaded an effort to put bilingual board books in the hands of new parents at local hospitals. Now she is working with VCU Health to implement a similar program to reach more families.

“For me, everything comes back to contributing to the health of the community,” said Martin, an OB-GYN who teaches at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Carilion Clinic. “As a physician, you can have an impact beyond what’s expected if you have an open mind to possibilities for influencing others, whether it’s exposing them to literacy or careers in health care. I am a dirt road onto the health care highway — one of many. We can all contribute in our own ways.”