CHRISTUS St. Mary's Clinic

Sister Rosanne Popp, M.D., Medical Director

The driving force at CHRISTUS St. Mary's Clinic, Sister Rosanne is a slender woman with a spirited head of hair and fire in her eyes. And no wonder. Sister Rosanne Popp, M.D., is a member of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word (CCVI), the religious congregation that authored the mission of CHRISTUS Health.

“My work really fits who I am,” says Sister Rosanne, “Just as I was drawn to the incarnational spirituality of our congregation, I am nurtured by the earthiness of my daily work in the clinic. As I see it, this is where the rubber meets the road.”

Over the last three decades, Sister Rosanne has accumulated missionary experience in the United States and abroad, along with enough degrees and awards to fill an office wall, which they do. After high school in Victoria, Texas, she entered a convent in her home town and earned her designation as a Licensed Vocational Nurse at a hospital in Jourdanton. Her appetite whetted, she went on in 1974 to take a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing at Incarnate Word College in nearby San Antonio. As a nurse, she worked in Cuero and Yoakum, before stepping back and taking a new view of her life and her calling.

Shortly thereafter, Sister Rosanne changed religious orders, joining the CCVI congregation in Houston. She began work in a nursing home and then moved to St. Elisabeth Hospital, in Houston’s Fifth Ward. In that “a mess of a place” she rode out Hurricane Alicia, the storm that killed 21 and did more than $1 billion of damage to the Houston-Galveston area in August 1983.

Encouraged by congregants to pursue her dream of being a nurse practitioner, working with the poor, Sister Rosanne next journeyed to the Medical College of Virginia for two years. In Richmond, she earned membership in two honorary societies, received the school’s Temple Memorial Award, gained a listing as an Outstanding College Student of North America and a Master of Science degree. New credentials in hand, she returned to her home state to become a family nurse practitioner in Seton East Health Center in Austin.

Within two years of taking her M.S. degree, she determined to make yet another move. Confronted by the question of “Why not be a doc?” she decided, indeed, Why not?

After brushing up on pre-med academics and passing her MCATs, Sister Rosanne found herself back in San Antonio labs and classrooms, this time as a medical student at the University of Texas Health Science Center. Before graduating, she would earn a prestigious membership in Alpha Omega Alpha, the nation’s medical honor society.

To crown her preparation for clinical practice, she received her Doctor of Medicine degree in 1994 and, the next year, posted the highest score of any Texas doctor on the United States Medical License Examination.