Medical Staff President Dr. Laura Markley, with parents Dr. Larry and Sally Markley
When Dr. Laura Markley becomes president of Akron Children’s Medical Staff on July 1, it will mark a meaningful personal and professional moment. As a toddler, she was hospitalized at Akron Children’s with a life-threatening infection — one that would later become largely preventable through routine childhood immunization. Now, as a physician leader, she hopes to use her story to promote education around pediatric health and address some of the confusion and concern she sees surrounding topics like vaccination.
Laura at her father’s graduation from veterinary school in 1980.
Dr. Markley was raised in Orrville, Ohio, the eldest of five children born to Dr. Larry and Sally Markley, a veterinarian and an educator/school psychologist. In 1979, when she was around 20 months old, her parents were visiting family in Wayne County over Memorial Day weekend, when she spiked a high fever and wasn’t her normal talkative self – a change that alarmed her parents. After not sensing urgency locally, they brought her to the Akron Children’s Emergency Room, where then pediatric resident (and later longtime Akron pediatrician) Dr. Robert Sobieski immediately said, “This child has meningitis.”
She was diagnosed with Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), a bacterial infection that can lead to serious conditions like pneumonia and meningitis, which is an infection of the lining of the brain and spinal cord.
“I went into a coma. I was admitted and treated with IV antibiotics and spent 13 days in the hospital. There was concern that I was either going to not survive, or that I would have severe neurological disabilities,” Dr. Markley recalled. “Other children there at the same time with the same infection didn’t survive. My family is forever grateful to Akron Children’s Hospital for saving my life, and we recognize what a blessing that was.”
Though Hib vaccines were not yet available at the time, they became part of the U.S. childhood immunization schedule by 1990 and have since reduced rates of severe disease by over 99%.
Laura, in 1979, shortly after her 13-day hospitalization.
The side effects of meningitis
Though she survived, complications followed. At age 3, she began having seizures that significantly impacted her school experience and social life, until they eventually resolved in middle school.
“I went from being early to talk and read, to being in a fog on seizure medication. There weren’t the options for treatment that we have now,” she said. “I got picked on and struggled to interact. It really changed my childhood.
“I share this because some diseases don’t just threaten lives – they change them. I often hear people talk about vaccines in terms of life or death, but for many kids, it’s also about preventing lifelong consequences,” said Dr. Markley. “I had the privilege of surviving and recovering, but not every child does. That’s why I tell my story.”
With brother, Larry, while taking a break from duties in the College of Wooster Marching Band.
Her path to back to Akron Children’s
Dr. Markley attended The College of Wooster and then enrolled at the Northeast Ohio Medical University (now NEOMED) in Rootstown, thinking she wanted to be a forensic pathologist. However, she realized over time that she valued interactions with children and families – and pursued a course of study that would allow her to address each patient in a holistic manner.
Dr. Markley, with her grandmother, at her “White Coat Ceremony,” a rite of passage for medical students.
Today, Dr. Markley is quadruple board-certified in pediatrics, psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry, and addiction medicine.
She joined Akron Children’s in 2009 and has served in various leadership roles, most recently as medical director of Addiction Services. She brings her lived experience into her practice — not only as a physician, but as someone who once sat in a hospital bed in the care of this very institution.
“My parents were overwhelmed and far from home with an extremely sick child,” she said. “They didn’t know that resources were available until someone happened to mention it. Now, I always ask my patients and their families: ‘Do you know where to get coffee? Has someone offered you a meal?’ Small things can mean a lot when you’re scared and vulnerable.”
Dr. Markley with her younger sisters: (L-R) twins Lyndsay and LaVonne – with LuAnn in the middle.
Now, as vaccine-preventable illnesses like measles and pertussis begin to reemerge, she feels compelled to help families make informed choices. “Parents want what is best for their kids,” she said. “But with so much misinformation out there, it can be hard to know what to trust. Social media feeds each person an algorithm that has one voice and doesn’t offer other information or sources. My hope is to bring perspective and empathy to the discussion.”
Though she credits her past with shaping who she is today, she says, if given the choice, she would have gladly received the Hib vaccine as a child.
“If it meant sparing my family the fear and pain of almost losing me,” she said, “absolutely.”
