Convent Turns to One of Its Own to Offer Medical Care

Sister Mary Diana--once nicknamed “Sister M.D.” by her high school biology students--received her medical degree for real Friday after her fellow nuns put her through Vanderbilt University on the condition that she return to their convent to care for them.

The 39-year-old Dominican nun will be the in-house physician at the St. Cecilia convent, which has 125 resident nuns.

“We’ve had excellent experiences with doctors in Nashville,” said Mother Rose Marie, who oversees the nuns. “But it seemed the time had come to have someone of our own community available to assist the sisters.”

Sister Mary Diana had always expressed an interest in studying medicine and was first approached with the offer by her mother superior.

“I think she realized the changing face of health care,” Sister Mary Diana said. “For years, physicians had been offering us their services for free, but as insurance regulations changed it became less possible for them to do so.

“We see it as an investment to have a physician in-house--one that will pay off down the road.”

Sister Mary Diana received a degree in education from the State University of New York at Stoney Brook in 1983, after spending her first two years of college at Cornell University.

She taught high school biology and chemistry in New York for six years and earned a master’s degree in education. She joined the Nashville convent in 1989 and taught at a convent-run school -- where, because of her initials, her students nicknamed her “Sister M.D.”

“I always had medicine in the back of my mind,” Sister Mary Diana said. “I even spent my first two years at Cornell in premed. But education was something I found that I absolutely loved--so that’s the way I went.”