Dana Beyer, MD, for Maryland State Delegate 2010

Dr. Dana Beyer has always been immersed in politics and social change. Growing up in New York City with her social conscience formed by traditional Jewish ethics, most of her strongest childhood memories and emotional milestones were formed by our nation’s most courageous leaders. As a child, Dana was inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. She remembers President Kennedy’s ringing words during his Inaugural Address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” It was Robert Kennedy’s candidacy for President during Dana’s sophomore year in high school that spurred her to take action and to become part of the political process. The first time she ever set foot in a church, and cried in public, was while viewing Senator Kennedy’s casket lying in state in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. It was the strength and bravery of these slain leaders that forged Dana’s dedication to continue the missions that these men were prevented from completing.

She attended Orthodox Jewish day school for ten-twelve hours a day and then commuted for four hours daily to attend the prestigious Bronx High School of Science. She is a 1974 Phi Beta Kappa graduate with distinction of the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences, and a 1978 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She finished school in less than four years to travel abroad and worked in Africa as a physician and surgeon near the northwestern Kenyan town of Kisumu, the home region of President Obama’s father. She delivered babies, treated burn victims and Kenyans with many diseases no longer seen in the United States. She also saw first-hand the carnage wrought in neighboring Uganda by the tyrant Idi Amin, as refugees escaped across the border into Kenya.

Following her internship in internal medicine at the George Washington University Hospital, she completed her residency in eye surgery at the prestigious Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, Florida, frequently rated as the top eye institute in the world.

Upon completing her residency, Dana once again traveled abroad. This time she used her new skills as an eye surgeon for the treatment of the Nepalese people in the foothills of the Himalayas, while working for the World Health Organization’s Prevention of Blindness Program. The experience of performing cataract surgery with the equivalent of a can opener and other crude tools made her appreciate the blessings of having been trained in the United States.

Once back home, she took a job in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, serving the residents of South Mississippi as a glaucoma and retina specialist and drawing patients from as far away as El Salvador. She was one of the few surgeons in the area willing to see Medicaid patients, and provided quality care to a large population of underserved African-American and Cajun patients, performing nearly 10,000 surgical procedures during her career. She has also published in peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals such as the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Ophthalmology. In late 1990, Dr. Beyer retired from clinical practice, and after divorce she worked assiduously to rebuild her life, being the best parent she could to her two young children.

During the 1990’s she learned to manage family investments with a team of like-minded investors. She returned to college at the University of Maryland to complete course work which could lead to a Master’s degree in Organic Chemistry, a love of hers since college which she had never pursued. Married again in 1997, she soon had primary custody of her two growing boys.

As a longtime resident of Chevy Chase, Dana has stood up for its residents with her service as Senior Assistant to at-large County Councilmember, Duchy Trachtenberg, who represents Chevy Chase. She is working with Chevy Chase Village this season on the Budget Committee. She has been an active member of her synagogue, Tiferet Israel Congregation, and a director with the Jewish youth support group, Keshet, as well as Vice President of both Equality Maryland and Maryland NOW. She has been actively involved in the upbringing of her sons, including her involvement with their athletic and musical extracurricular activities, and has supported quality education at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School. She serves on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Human Rights Campaign’s Board of Governors, the Montgomery County Board of Social Services, and the Board of Directors of Mobile Medical Care, which provides medical care to the County’s uninsured population. She has served on the Obama campaign’s national and state LGBT Steering Committees. She is a founding member of Progressive Working Group, a coalition of the County’s non-profits dedicated to creating a liberal culture in Annapolis and electing truly progressive representatives. She helped found Basic Rights Montgomery, which turned back the attempt of religious radicals in the county to overturn the landmark county gender identity civil rights law, which she helped get passed unanimously by the County Council. She has worked on behalf of all students in the community as a founding director of teachthefacts.org, a parents group organized in 2004 to support comprehensive sex education in the public schools and to vigorously oppose the imposition of a religiously-based abstinence-only curriculum which would isolate and demonize gay and transgender students. She performs and publicizes research, as medical advisor and web manager of the DES Sons International Network, on the effects of endocrine disrupting compounds such as DES, DDT, phthalates and bisphenol A, on human sexuality and reproduction, as well as providing personal support and mentoring. In 2005 she presented a breakthrough paper, with her colleagues Dr. Scott Kerlin and Dr. Milton Diamond, to the International Behavioral Development Symposium, delineating the impact DES has had in causing intersex and gender variations in human beings. Finally, she is a 2008 graduate of the Senior Executive Program in State and Local Government at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She runs regularly to stay healthy, having completed nine marathons during the past seven years.

Her older son, David, is currently working at the Center for American Progress, run by John Podesta, chair of the Obama Transition Team. His younger brother, Jonathan, is a certified EMT and a junior at the University of Maryland at College Park, working towards becoming a trauma surgeon. David's interests are in law and finance. He’s worked as a summer intern for Senator Ben Cardin after having been graduated from Brown University majoring in history. Jonathan is also an accomplished musician. Dana’s brother, Larry, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis.