Laura Vater, MD
About
Dr. Laura B. Vater, MD, MPH, is a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Indiana University Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center. She's also a writer, TEDx and commencement speaker, mother, and advocate for patients and healthcare workers. She believes that patients should be treated as whole human beings and that clinicians deserve the same.
Education & Current Work
Dr. Vater (pronounced "Vah-ter") earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Notre Dame, a Master of Public Health from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Doctor of Medicine from Indiana University School of Medicine. She then completed a residency in Internal Medicine and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at Indiana University. ​She is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology.
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She is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine. She is also the founding director of the Young-Onset Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancer Program at IU and co-founder of the narrative medicine program Writing for Wellness.
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She was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society in 2018 and is a member of the Pegasus Physician Writers at Stanford University. She has developed a wellness behavior tool for patients and clinicians (the SMILE Scale) and has published several narrative medicine essays and peer-reviewed publications, available via her CV, here.
Why Oncology?
Dr. Vater was set on practicing oncology from an early age after her childhood coach and friend, Kim, was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in her early forties.​
Now, Dr. Vater cares for patients with gastrointestinal cancers, like Kim had. She is the Founding Director of the Young-Onset Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancer Program at the Indiana University Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center, the first program in the state dedicated to providing care to patients under age 50.
She started writing in medical school to
help cope with caring for ill patients
As a pregnant medical student, she witnessed the loss of a child on her obstetrics rotation, and journaling helped her process this heartbreaking experience. She describes the challenge of witnessing such loss in the essay Papaya.
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Now, she continues to write narrative pieces, essays, and novels. She has co-founded the group Writing for Wellness for clinicians at the Indiana University School of Medicine. She is also a member of the Pegasus Physician Writers at Stanford University. Her writing has been featured in JGIM, the Intima, MedPage Today, MDLinx, Medium, and in Anna Quindlen's book, Write for Your Life.