Ponnila Marinescu
Age: 39
Occupation: Maternal-Fetal Medicine (High Risk Obstetrics) Physician / Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Rochester.
Hobbies: Dancing, Running, Sailing, Reading Historical Fiction Novels
A Bit About Me
I was born in Portland, Maine to immigrant parents. My father left his home in Chennai, Tamil Nadu (South India) and came to the United States to pursue a PhD at the University of New Hampshire. After completing his degree, he married my mother in India and the two of them returned to the US to begin a new life. They moved to a small town in Maine, and my father began his faculty career at St. Francis College, now the University of New England. He and my mother were integral parts of the college community, sharing their Indian culture with students and friends and hosting the Annual Doc Samuel’s Variety Show at the college.
My mother worked at an insurance company in Portland. She learned to drive, to wear pants instead of saris, and to embrace the way of life in the United States. She and my father desired a family more than anything else, but unfortunately, due to cervical insufficiency, she lost three babies prematurely.
Gilbert and Dhanam Samuel and Pinta
After 15 years of struggle and an abdominal cerclage, I was born. And because my parents felt it was important for me to have a sibling, they conceived again and my sister was born 3 years later.
Ponnila performing Indian dance.
Education was a huge part of our life and my sister and I worked hard and excelled at our studies, both becoming valedictorians of our respective high school classes. However, the other significant part of our life was dancing. At a young age, we began clogging. Clogging is a dance form that is fast paced and draws from Appalachian Dance, Irish Step Dancing, and Tap. We were chosen to be a part of the traveling team for the Maine Attraction Cloggers and traveled across the nation, competing and performing in National Conventions. My sister and I were named National Champions during our high school years.
Our Indian heritage was also very important to us. One way for us to share our culture with others was through dance. I began performing solo dances from age 5 and, although I am not classically trained, I have performed aspects of Bharatanatyam, Kathak, and Bollywood styles, integrating the forms for both religious festivals and entertainment. In college and medical school, I continued these dance traditions and taught students.
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After high school, I attended Bowdoin College and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a major in Biochemistry and a Minor in English. I then matriculated to medical school at the University of Rochester, where I met my husband, Mark.
Mark and I started studying together in medical school. I typically did not study in groups, but something about this person, made me say, “just do it.” We were inseparable, and I felt like I had found my other half. From the way I talked about him to my family, my grandmother had already figured out that we were soul mates even before I knew it myself. The only problem was that I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to Mark about my feelings. In fact, I was so scared of acknowledging them, that I did everything I could to avoid him. This was, of course, while we were moving into a house together with other friends—so not good timing on my part.
Mark actually asked my permission to kiss me (it was my first kiss) and…the rest is history. We have now been happily married for 13 years.
Mark and I completed residency at the University of Virginia. My training, specifically, was in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Our residency friends remain our family to this day and we feel so blessed to have had each one of them come into our lives.
During residency, we both determined that we wanted to do further training in our sub-specialty fields: Me in Maternal-Fetal Medicine (High Risk Obstetrics) and Mark in Cardiology. To avoid having to spend several years apart during training, we staggered our courses and Mark matched first to THE Ohio State University. We moved to Columbus, OH, for three years, met friends we now call family, and found a life long passion—sailing.
After Mark graduated, I matched to MFM fellowship at the University of Rochester. By this time, he had decided to do one additional year of training in Critical Care Cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and so we made the hard decision to spend one year apart. Mark joined me at the University of Rochester after his training, and I completed my fellowship in MFM after three years. We both stayed on as faculty at the University of Rochester, Mark in Critical Care Cardiology, and myself, in Maternal Fetal Medicine and now Complex Family Planning. We adopted a little Portuguese Water Dog we named, Pinta, and love watching her explore life and growing in all ways. ​
I continue to keep myself busy with sailing on our 35 foot Southern Cross, Equus Luna; our canal boat, Equualeus; ballroom dancing; and running. ​I consider myself so lucky to be able to have a loving husband, dog, parents, sister, in-laws, and chosen family and to have a job and a work family that I genuinely adore as well as a supportive community. I wish so much to share this with a child of our own, to teach them what life has to offer and to help them explore the world in their own way.