Alumni Spotlight

Name: Jacob Lauer

Current Titles:

Assistant Professor at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Gynecologic Surgeon

Director of Gynecology Quality & Patient Safety

Director of Operations, Division of Gynecologic Specialty Surgery

Organization: Columbia University

Major: B.S. Food Science and Industry '07

M.D. Medicine, University of Kansas, ‘11

MPH Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, ‘18

MBA, Columbia Business School, ‘25

K-State College of Ag is proud to recognize alumni from all departments who continue to pursue their passion in their respective fields. It is through experience that we continue to grow as individuals and stewards of the industry. Through those experiences, we hope to be a continued resource for the next generation of K-State students to lean on for advice and continue to build our network!

Why did you choose K-State?

I chose K-State because I’m from Kansas and was involved in FFA in high school. I had been to K-State’s campus multiple times and was familiar with some of the leadership in the College of Agriculture. The school had a great balance of providing high-quality education with a diversity of majors, but also had affordable tuition and scholarship opportunities. Manhattan was a great place to have a college experience.

How did your food science degree translate to your medical career?

I majored in food science, and that was because I had a strong agricultural background. Agriculture and the College of Ag were very familiar to me. I was also preparing for medical school and I wanted to be able to fulfill all of my required science and core classes, which the food science path allowed me to do.

Looking back, a lot of my career path has overlapped with my food science background. When I think about what training in food science gave me, I think a lot about how food systems and production systems work, specifically with a public health perspective on it. When I went to medical school and completed my residency, I was really focused on patients and clinical conditions, but when I started doing my public health training, I realized I relied upon my training in food science. I’ve really been able to leverage that background in my current roles, because that system-level of thinking is not inherent to medical training.

How did you figure out you wanted to work in a medical field?

I grew up in FFA taking care of livestock, so when I was young, I wanted to be a veterinarian. In high school, I started thinking about medicine. By the time I went to K-State, I was a pre-med major.

When I was at K-State, I went through the crisis that every undergraduate student has, where I didn’t know where I wanted to go with my profession. At some point, I switched to economics or pre-law, but one of my mentors at K-State sat me down and said not to give up on my medical pathway. I took some economics classes and learned that it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life, so I’m really thankful for that advice telling me to stay the course.

What does a week in your life look like?

As a minimally invasive gynecologic surgeon, I usually spend about two days in the operating room doing minimally invasive surgery for the whole day. Another day is usually spent in the clinic, seeing patients and evaluating their medical conditions, determining if they need surgery, caring for patients who are preparing for surgery and following up with patients after their surgery.

Two more days are spent doing administrative work, like going to meetings, researching or working on projects in quality, safety and clinical operations. The basis of the projects are to help our systems be more efficient, provide better care for patients and facilitate financial plans.

How did you start working at Columbia University?

While working at the University of Wisconsin, I decided to pursue fellowship training in minimally invasive surgery. I applied to a bunch of programs across the country, but intentionally left out New York. Being from Kansas, living in New York sounded wildly out of reach. My department chair at the University of Wisconsin met with me and advised me to apply anyway, so I did. I went to Columbia to interview and really connected with the faculty. When match day came, I ended up matching with Columbia and completed my three-year fellowship here. I was offered a position on the faculty to continue in quality and operations work, so I stayed. I’m now in my fourth year after the fellowship.

What advice would you give to current students?

I found that in the early season of learning as a university student, there is tremendous value in exploring different academic disciplines. It’s easy to get on one track, in terms of what you want your career to look like, and start trying to just check boxes. One of the courses I took in undergrad was Social History of American Medicine, and the course ended up being very formative for me and directed a lot of my research. Branch out and use your time as a university student to explore fields of study, disciplines and classes that don’t seem to have a clear correlation to your planned career.

What advice do you have for students who are graduating and starting their careers?

When I think of my career trajectory, if you had told younger me that I am a surgeon at Columbia University, I would have thought you were crazy. One of the lessons I take away from that is that throughout your training and career, there are going to be doors that open. It can sometimes be hard to determine which doors to walk through or not. There’s no magic way to know. You have to take a step back, think about who you are, your values, where you’re going and make a decision. I would have never thought my food science degree would help me be a problem-solver of hospital systems in a New York City hospital, but I chose the major because it aligned with who I was and where I was going. There’s a balance between being intentional about which doors you choose to walk through and which you don’t and also realizing you can’t control every step of your professional journey.