Mary Washington, MD FACP

Founder and Director, Reversing Medical Disease Clinic, Houston TX

Board certified in Internal Medicine since 1991, and Nephrology

Former Chair, Department of Medicine, East Houston Regional Medical Center

Creator of the "Rapper M.D." persona and campaign, to help raise public consciousness, through music and poetry, about the underappreciated life-threatening dangers of preventable diabetes and chronic kidney disease

Honored by the Houston TX Mayor's declaration of March 26, 2014 as Rapper M.D. Day in appreciation for community outreach regarding awareness of kidney health and disease

Certificate in Plant-based Nutrition, T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and eCornell

Mary Washington, MD FACP earned her Doctorate in Medicine from the Medical College of Wisonsin, and completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine, followed by a fellowship in Nephrology, at Tulane University Affiliated Hospitals in New Orleans.  She is board certified in Internal Medicine (since 1991), and in Nephrology, and formerly served as Chair of the Department of Medicine at East Houston Regional Medical Center. 

Dr. Washington practiced Internal Medicine and Nephrology in Houston for many years, but became frustrated and disillusioned with the conventional modes of practice as a "legalized drug pusher", saying “I am tired of placing people on dialysis machines”.  She left her medical group in 2016 to develop the nutrition and lifestyle focused Reversing Medical Disease (RMD) Clinic, with a belief in the potential for "Food as Medicine".  Within the first year she was already able to improve patients' kidney function, safely help patients control hypertension without medications, and even in some cases reverse diabetes, all of which had seemed beyond reach during the prior 25 years of work.  Her own investigations included earning a Certificate in Plant-based Nutrition from T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and eCornell.

The RMD programs take a detailed look at a patient's lifestyle habits, reviewing together realistic and attainable short-term and long-term goals for health and well-being, with an ultimate goal of having an active fun physical lifestyle while safely off of medications.  The three-phase comprehensive programs emphasize education, plant-based nutrition and physical activity, customizing whole food plant-based diet plans for stage 2-to-4 chronic kidney disease caused by Type 2 diabetes and/or hypertension, or customizing Exercise Rx plans for obesity, hypertension, kidney stones or diabetes.

Dr. Washington created the "Rapper MD" campaign to educate her community about taking control of their health, and about seeking to prevent or reverse the conditions that cause destruction of kidney function, or the need for dialysis, in the first place.  The city of Houston TX declared March 26th as a holiday, Rapper MD Day, in honor of her work as physician, public health educator and musician all at once.