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Maria Bowers '90
 Descending from a line of physicians helped Maria Bowers choose her path. GPS, she claims, gave her the confidence to take it. “Knowing that other people who graduated from the school had gone out and done great things made me feel I could do it, too,” she says.
To no one’s surprise, Maria entered GPS in the seventh grade with a medical career in the back of her mind. An early sign of interest was clearly there; from the age of eight, she spent weekends and summers working at Chattanooga Women’s Specialists, her father’s office.
While her GPS academic accomplishments were wide ranging, she nonetheless enjoyed the camaraderie of a circle of adventurous friends. “I was diligent in my studies, but it wasn’t all-consuming,” she says with a smile. “I had fun.”
Maria felt an impression made by a refrain of success stories she heard as a student when invited alumnae returned to campus and addressed the student body. “GPS made me feel I could do whatever I wanted to do and be whatever I wanted to be," she recalls. "When I graduated, I didn’t have thoughts about my gender holding me back.”
After graduating from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences in Missouri, Maria began donning blue scrubs for deliveries and intensive mornings of surgeries at Parkridge East and Hutcheson Medical Center.
She balances the high-energy demands of a medical practice with recreation and friendships. “My closest friends now are the ones I made at GPS,” she notes. “One of the neatest things about the school is the strong bonds you form.” As other GPS influences in her life, Maria lists a supportive faculty that “wanted everyone to do their best,” an honor code that extols integrity, a wide breadth of opportunities and enough structure to teach the importance of rules.
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