Leading Ladies: From rookie to role model - Dr. Marlene Rabinovitch
The 1983 Research Institute Annual Report identified the growth of the Cardiovascular Research Program as one of the major highlights of the year. That growth was credited to the influx of qualified staff and one of those new team members was Dr. Marlene Rabinovitch.
Dr. Rabinovitch started out at SickKids in 1983 as an associate in Paediatrics and Pathology and an assistant professor in Paediatrics and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Toronto. She went on to become the acting director and eventually the director of the Cardiovascular Research Program in the Research Institute. During her time at SickKids, she held the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario Chair for the hospital and was awarded the Medical Research Council of Canada’s Distinguished Scientist Award.
Dr. Rabinovitch followed a pretty incredible path before landing at SickKids. It began when she earned her MD from McGill University in 1967 and then pursued an internship and residency in paediatrics at the University of Colorado Medical Center. She completed three fellowships (two clinical and one research) in cardiology at Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Medical Center at Harvard Medical School. Her first academic position was in the Department of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School as an instructor and then as an assistant professor before she moved to Toronto in 1982.
While at SickKids and ever since, Dr. Rabinovitch established herself as an international leader in the fields of pulmonary vascular development and vascular biology. She is known for her discoveries that have led to experimental treatment for pulmonary hypertension and congenital heart disease.
Currently, Dr. Rabinovitch is a cardiologist, researcher and professor at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine. She is the co-author of 134 peer-reviewed publications, 92 book chapters and requested articles and the recipient of numerous awards. She currently holds National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants in the areas of cardiovascular development and disease, pulmonary hypertension, chronic lung injury after premature birth and pulmonary vascular disease.