Laura Vater, MD

A new attending reached out: “I’m struggling to balance my interest in medicine with time for my family, other interests outside of my...

“Mommy, will you sing the valley song?” my three-year-old daughter asks. We came across this folk song a few months ago, and it has...

Congratulations on matching into residency and graduating from medical school! You've already accomplished so much, and you should be...

I watch the sun descend from the hallway of the ICU, again covering the unit for the night. Ventilators whoosh while filling injured...

Making a relationship work in a medical career isn’t easy. Between long working hours, studying demands, not a lot of extra time, and...

As a medical student in my early years, I remember thinking: “Once I finish my coursework and USMLE Step 1, then I’ll be happy.” Then,...

My mentor once told me that as an oncologist, I'll share bad news with patients more than 10,000 times throughout my career. Whew. How...

Julie carried the news of two diagnoses, coming just weeks after burying her son: Multiple myeloma and amyloidosis were the unfamiliar...

Published in Blood and Thunder: Musing on the Art of Medicine ​ Four Walls Laura Vater, MD, MPH Published in Blood and Thunder: Musings...

A common question I get as an oncologist is this: "How do you deal with the sadness of your work? How do you cope when your patients die?...

(Published on MedPage Today) I became a mom in medical school. I became a mom at a time when many people told me I shouldn't (or...

(Published on MDLinx) After months of long hours and fractured sleep as a resident, followed by a stressful 28-hour call, I sat in the...

Working in the hospital doesn’t exactly promote the health of clinicians. Here some strategies that have helped me stay healthy.

My mom was life-lined to a critical care unit. I was a first-year med student, and I remember only pieces of that first day...

“I’m so tired,” my husband says. Meanwhile, I’m post-call and have been awake for 30 hours straight. I’ve admitted five patients, pronounced

My mom went to medical school at age 37, and I was nine. She showed me that having a career and a family was both feasible and meaningful.

I asked every residency program (in advance) for access to a lactation room. For some programs, it was the first time they had been asked...

I recognize now that research competence is really all about skill building. If you increase your competence, you will increase your...

Focusing is hard. Here are some tips that have helped me study during medical school and for board exams like the USMLE Steps 1, 2, and 3.