Retana and her parents immigrated to the Greater Boston area in 1990 from her native St. Petersburg after travel restrictions were lifted in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. She attended Brandeis University as an undergraduate, and received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. Her clinical training in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology was completed at Tufts University in Boston and the University of Massachusetts in Worcester.

Begun as a labor of love, Looking for the Enter Sign is not only a tribute to Retana’s parents, but is also a missive to those who have not experienced the immigrant story and who might be touched by a different perspective. 

Retana currently resides in Rhode Island as a practicing physician with her husband and two children.