Tovia Martirosian Smith with her father, Edward Martirosian (Photo by Monica Escamilla)
Urogynecologist Tovia Martirosian Smith was surrounded by medicine growing up, so she didn’t have to look beyond her home to find career inspiration: Her father, Edward Martirosian, a cardiologist and senior partner at Henrico Cardiology Associates, was, and continues to be, a strong mentor.
During her childhood, subtle clues about the medical world lay all around Smith’s house. She remembers poring through her father’s medical textbooks as she lay sprawled out on a rug.
While she was in high school, she says, her father mentored by example. “I could see that he was happy when he came home from work,” she says. “There was never a question [whether] I would go into medicine. He didn’t necessarily encourage or help me in the sciences, but I did tend to enjoy them.”
Smith attended St. Catherine’s School in Richmond and then Yale University, where she played varsity field hockey. “My dad came for all the field hockey games,” she says. “He was very supportive.”
At the time, her father, who was born in Iran of Armenian descent, recalls telling her, “The most important thing in life is your education. Do all you can do in education. No one can take that away from you.
“I didn’t want it to be: ‘Your father said [you have to be a doctor],’ ” he recalls. “I told her: ‘Succeed in life and be happy.’ ”
Smith went to medical school at the University of Virginia, where she trained in obstetrics and gynecology, then pursued a specialty fellowship in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery at the University of Michigan.
Martirosian Smith and family at her medical school graduation (Photo courtesy Tovia Martirosian Smith)
Today, she is a urogynecologist in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery specializing in pelvic prolapse at Virginia Women’s Center. She uses nonsurgical approaches as well as advanced technologies, such as minimally invasive surgery and the da Vinci Robotic Surgery System, to reconstruct the pelvic floor for women who suffer from pelvic organ prolapse, urinary incontinence and fecal incontinence. She is skilled in repairing fistulas and complications from third- and fourth-degree tears following vaginal childbirth.
“My training was long, and I had awesome mentors,” she says. “At U.Va. Medical School, there were many female surgeons. They were women who were comfortable in their skin and who had interests outside of medicine.”
Smith says it’s harder to pinpoint a particular moment of mentorship she experienced from her father, whom she describes as “very wise.”
“Mentoring gives you the skills on how to survive and thrive when times get tough,” she says. “It’s where you look to someone who you can mold yourself after.”
Edward Martirosian says he and his daughter see some of the same patients, and they tell him that his daughter shares his bedside manner. As a parent mentor, he imparted those softer skills to his daughter. “[Tovia] has seen how I handle patients, and she’s learned from that,” he says.
“We don’t talk much about medicine,” he adds. “I respect what she does. I support her in any way I can. I’m happy for her, as long as she does good for the patients.”
He says mentoring traditionally happens in medical school, residency and internships.
“It’s personal,” he says. “It’s people we work with day and night. Being a doctor, there are specific things you have to learn and do. It comes from within. You learn things you’ve never done. There is never enough time.”
Today, in Smith’s home, her own children with her husband, Steven Christopher Smith, a pathologist, are being exposed to lives in medicine. As in her childhood home, medical textbooks line the family’s shelves and are sometimes used as booster seats.
“I see my son looking at the spines of those books and wondering what’s behind them,” she says. “The other day my son chose a book about human anatomy out of the library and was also perusing a pathology textbook.”
By providing nourishment to a child’s burgeoning interests, a seed can be planted and its direction cultivated.
