Title:Honoring A Beloved Caregiver

Three decades after graduating from the School of Medicine, Elinor Bond Martin, M.D. (M’79, R’83), an obstetrician/gynecologist better known as “E.D.,” has striven to live her life as the embodiment of cura personalis, the Jesuit ideal of caring for the whole person that permeates every aspect of medical education at Georgetown University.

Her path to medicine was anything but direct—she was a Navy wife and a mother of two when she applied to Georgetown, many years older than the typical first-year medical student. The families whose lives she has touched over the years remain forever grateful that she chose this profession. As one of her former patients struggling with infertility once quipped, “The joke in our family is that E.D. got me pregnant—[my husband] helped, but she was the one.”

Others recall how she always served up patient care with empathy and understanding. “She didn’t just check their blood tests or wounds, she actually asked them how they were and what was going on with her family members,” her sister-in-law, Martha Martin, M.D. (M’79), recalled. “She really had a remarkable way with patients.”

To honor her inspiring career and the countless lives she has touched, the family has established the Elinor Bond Martin, M.D. (M’79, R’83), Endowed Scholarship for the School of Medicine.