By Rita McInerney

Dr. Maria Soriano practices her healing with skilled professionalism and Christian love for both the children she treats and their worried parents.

"I feel that I am doing something good," she says with an assurance born of dedication to her work and confidence that God guides her always.

She loves being a doctor and "being a pediatrician is the best. I love children, especially the preemies, the newborn."

"When it comes to treating children, you have to know the mother and father," she believes. "You have to know their problems. You suffer with them. Many times you suffer more than the mother. You know this could be wrong, this could happen. You have to be close to the Lord. I try to do my best but I know the final work comes from Him. You just have to pray."

Praying is as necessary to her as a stethoscope. Daily Mass at her church, All Saints in Dunwoody, strengthens her. Praying with fellow cursillistas is another source of grace. "When I have a problem, they pray with me."

She jokes about her prayer life with the fond familiarity of one on good terms with her God. "When night comes I can hear Him say, 'O Lord here comes Maria again!'"

A "solo practitioner," she treats newborns to college-bound teenagers at her office in a professional building at Piedmont Hospital.

The waiting room is functional, no expensive colonial reproductions here. Two examining rooms have windows looking out on the city. Her office is small, two desks, two chairs. A paperback, "Short History of the Catholic Church," is on one of the two high-backed chairs for patients.

Her manner is gentle as she checks over the chubby baby. Four-month-old Johnny, she tells the visitor, had a very difficult time at birth and is still being seen by several specialists. This puts a heavy financial burden on his parents.

Johnny has a cold. She gives him a children's remedy by mouth and an injection in his upper leg. He cries in indignation for a few seconds as his parents watch anxiously, then grows quiet.

Dr. Soriano talks at length with the adults in fluent Spanish, reassuring them the tests made by her nurse, Lety, indicate he is doing well. There is no sense of brief time allotted, no brusque manner, no moving back and forth between examining rooms. Johnny and his mother and father receive her full attention. They leave with physicians' samples of the medicine he needs.

Waiting in the next room is Lesley and her mother. The little girl is to start kindergarten in a few days, the doctor tells her visitor. She assures the mother that the child's blood count is improved since the last visit and reminds her to be sure and give Lesley plenty of fresh vegetables and milk.

Her credo for caring is basic. "As long as a child is in my office, I have a duty to that child."

"I see a lot of the Spanish community," she mentions. A native of Mexico, she estimates her practice is 40 percent Hispanic. News of her availability spreads by word of mouth in the Hispanic neighborhoods. "We are brothers and sisters. We just have to help each other."

Although she may not keep charts on them, Mexican laborers and others poorly paid bring their injuries and ailments to her on their lunch hour. "They don't have money to go to the hospital emergency rooms. I am a doctor. I treat them."

She was in general practice for five years in Mexico before coming to Atlanta in 1959 for pediatric training at St. Joseph's Hospital. This desire to specialize grew out of personal tragedy. Her second child, a boy, was stillborn. She blamed malpractice on the part of her doctor.

She came to Atlanta because it was extremely difficult to get into specialty hospitals in Mexico City. And becoming a pediatrician was something she felt compelled to do. "I promised the Lord I would do my best," she confesses.

Several years after she began training here, her husband and two children joined her. (She has four children.) She finished her residency at St. Joseph's in 1964 and was pediatric house officer at Piedmont Hospital from 1966 until 1971.

That was the year she was finally able to enter private practice, a step legally out of reach until she gained American citizenship. This long-awaited day arrived in 1970.

Next month, Dr. Soriano will be 35 years a medical doctor. The anniversary could be a time for remembering the grammar school girl who went often as a volunteer to visit sick children at a big Red Cross hospital in Mexico City.

And a time of special prayers of gratitude for her parents who worked hard to educate their children. But there was a point beyond which her father was not ready to cooperate. With the full authority of the Mexican male he told his ambitious daughter that "it's not for women to go to medical school," when she told him her dream. It was the 1940s and education for women had its limitations.

By this time she was enrolled at the Catholic University of Motolinia in Mexico City. This university for young women was staffed by the Nuns of the Holy Spirit, a congregation which encouraged students to fulfill their ambitions.

There were 40 girls in her class, many shared Maria's dream of becoming doctors. "The nun told us 'The Lord is with you always, as long as you are doing the right thing.' She gave us courage to talk to our parents," Maria remembers.

Courage wasn't enough; father still refused to let her enroll in medical school. Then, to the great surprise of father and daughter, her mother spoke up. "Listen," she firmly told her husband, "you encouraged her to get an education, to go to the university. She is going to medical school." Her astonished father, the doctor says, could only answer "OK."

Medical school was hard. She was deeply aware of the sacrifices her parents were making, her father's heart condition. "I always prayed to the Lord to help me."

It wasn't all work. There was an annual pilgrimage made by the entire class. "We met in the town of San Angel and walked to the Basilica of Guadalupe in thanksgiving because we had finished one more year. We did that for six years." It was a long, happy day, starting out at 5 a.m., walking, praying and enjoying a picnic, she remembers with a smile.

Dr. Soriano stays in contact with her families. When her office is closed her beeper keeps her in touch. Whether visiting patients at Piedmont or Northside, at home, or involved in church activities, she is available.

"It's not unusual to have the beeper go off in the middle of an RCIA meeting. And she'll be off to the hospital or her office," Father Al Jowdy, of All Saints, remarks. "I've never seen anyone as dedicated, as loving to her patients. She heals the whole person."