July 17, 2018

Debbie Shulkin

Debbie Shulkin's roots in Dallas run deep. Both of her grandmothers were born in Dallas right after the turn of the century, and her mother's father came from Russia as a young immigrant, arriving as a teenager and later moving to Dallas from Minneapolis because he disliked the harsh winters. Her father's parents ran a successful wholesale grocery with dry goods, produce, and a meat market in the Cedars neighborhood, while her mother's father was a tailor. Her parents met as children, family friends before either was born, and married in 1953 after her father finished his service in the Air Force following Korea. Debbie grew up with an older brother, an older sister, and a younger brother.

Debbie was raised behind Shearith Israel, where her family has been members for more than a century and where both her parents served in leadership of the Brotherhood and Sisterhood. She attended Akiba Academy from nursery through ninth grade, then Lake Hill School in East Dallas. Much of her childhood centered on the Jewish Community Center, from tennis lessons and arts and crafts to basketball from fourth through ninth grade. She studied at UT before transferring to Texas Woman's University for nursing, training extensively at Parkland Hospital, where she built her clinical skills.

Debbie began her nursing career at Baylor as an ICU intern and worked as a surgical trauma ICU nurse before earning critical care certification. She then spent nine years working for the infectious diseases chief, training as a vascular access nurse, an expertise that shaped the last 25 years of her career. She met her husband Randy, a clinical pharmacist from Denver, and they married ten months later, eventually settling in Plano and both working at Medical Center of Plano. She is stepmother to Randy's daughter Erin, who embraced Judaism, and grandmother to Tessa and Sophie in Sugar Land. A member of the Chevra Kadisha and proud of her role as a Jewish nurse and patient advocate, she has joined the board of the Dallas Jewish Historical Society and become more civically active.

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