It’s a dual mission at Lerner Clinic of teaching and helping animals in need. We work closely with shelters, rescues, and animal control officers to help that population of animals, while also providing supervised surgical experience to students. It’s a great partnership.
Dr. Laurence Sawyer, V99, Appointed New Lerner Clinic Medical Director
Consummate surgeon and teacher steps into new role after joining the team at Lerner Clinic last year
When Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University wanted to enhance the surgical training for veterinary students, they brought on board Dr. Laurence Sawyer, V99, to Luke and Lily Lerner Spay/Neuter Clinic as an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences. After folding into the close-knit team and embracing her role as a mentor to students, Sawyer is now taking the helm as the new medical director of Lerner Clinic.
Sawyer’s connection with Cummings School traces back almost 30 years—working at Cummings School Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, earning her D.V.M. at Cummings School, and volunteering at Tufts at Tech Community Veterinary Clinic at Worcester Technical High School and as an instructor for Cummings School’s dental training week before landing at Lerner Clinic last fall. Third- and fourth-year Cummings School students rotate through the clinic, serving animals from local shelters and rescue organizations, to build their surgical skills and gain exposure to shelter medicine.
Sawyer brings a plethora of experiences working with animals that led her to focus on surgical teaching. Raised in Houston and Austin, Texas, Sawyer earned her A.B. from Princeton University, majoring in biology, ecology, evolution, and animal behavior. For her thesis, she lived on a deserted barrier island off North Carolina to study the population of wild horses there. She planned on a career that involved biology and animals, possibly teaching at a university, but first wanted to see the world.
Sawyer joined the Peace Corps in Guatemala, cataloging wildlife in a cloud forest, where she found howler monkeys, quetzal birds, and many other fascinating species. After breaking her arm in a motorcycle accident, she returned to Houston and taught animal behavior labs at Rice University until she healed enough to return to the Peace Corps. This time, she went to Paraguay in the agroforestry program, assisting farmers in growing home gardens and Yerba mate trees for crops, teaching them how to graft sweet orange trees, and was a beekeeper of Africanized Killer Bees.
While at Rice University, Sawyer realized she wanted to pursue a career in veterinary medicine instead. She and her husband decided to pull up stakes and move to his home state of Massachusetts. She worked as a serology lab technician at Cummings School Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and started her D.V.M. the following year at Cummings School.
Sawyer explored the various veterinary fields while at Cummings School and published research on alopecia in cats in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA). During fourth-year rotations, she found her niche in surgery. She interned at South Shore Animal Hospital in Weymouth, Massachusetts, an experience she found invaluable, and stayed on as a staff surgeon for an additional year and half. She found another calling there — mentoring and teaching surgery to new graduates to help them rapidly improve their skills.
“The stakes are high being responsible for a live animal. Sharing my passion for surgery I find very rewarding,” she says.
Sawyer took on the role of first medical director of MSPCA Angell at Nashoba Veterinary Hospital, a clinic that offers affordable veterinary care in partnership with Nashoba Valley Technical High School. Over the next seven years, she taught high school students and final year veterinary student externs at the clinic.
“Being able to help open the Angell Clinic resonated with me in terms of why I got into veterinary medicine in the first place, helping animals and their families,” says Sawyer. “We started that program from the ground up. It was an opportunity to help a low-income population and teach surgery and general practice.”
Sawyer stayed in close touch with a friend from Cummings School, Dr. Gregory Wolfus, associate clinical professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences at Cummings School, who is the director of Tufts at Tech Community Veterinary Clinic located in Worcester Technical High School (WTHS). Tufts at Tech, the model on which the Angell Clinic at Nashoba Valley was based, provides affordable veterinary care to the local community and serves as a teaching clinic for Cummings School veterinary students and WTHC students learning to be veterinary assistants. For three years, Sawyer volunteered on her days off with Wolfus at Tufts at Tech.
She was recruited to join Cummings School to help enhance surgery training. Since joining Cummings School in August 2023, she has taught clinical surgical skills to third-year students in the Introduction to Small Animal Anesthesia and Surgery Techniques (ISAAST) course and to clinical year students through providing care for shelter and rescue animals in Massachusetts.
“It’s a dual mission at Lerner Clinic of teaching and helping animals in need,” says Sawyer. “We work closely with shelters, rescues, and animal control officers to help that population of animals while also providing supervised surgical experience to students. It’s a great partnership.”
“Dr. Sawyer brings a kind and uplifting teaching style that is critical to supporting the growth of novice surgeons,” says Dr. Yuki Nakayama, V14, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences at Cummings School. “Developing resilience and confidence is just as important as building technical skills, and she has a gift for balancing both needs.”
Nakayama, a Cummings School faculty member working at Tufts at Tech, moved to the Lerner Clinic for this academic year. “The Lerner Clinic coordinates the care of dozens of animals each day with our small but mighty core of dedicated and talented staff. Teamwork is essential, and Dr. Sawyer has done a great job of collaborating with everyone,” she says.
Sawyer is thrilled to tag-team with Nakayama in this endeavor, “Yuki is incredibly smart, very data driven, and thinks scientifically. It’s fun to work with her on figuring out which teaching method is most effective and continuing to improve those.”
For half the year, Sawyer and Nakayama lead teaching of surgery third-year students in the ISAAST course. Two students work together, with one performing surgery and one anesthesia, in addition to writing medical records, prepping and recovering the animals, and animal husbandry, all with close supervision and instruction.
The pace is faster in the second half of the year when clinical year students perform spays, neuters, and other primary care surgeries, such as amputations and enucleations, needed for cats and dogs in shelters and rescue organizations.
“Clinical year students can cut their own cases. We’re here to help, but they are the primary surgeons,” says Sawyer. “Having that opportunity to perform surgery in a safe environment helps prepare them after graduation to go into practice and do surgery. We’re providing that valuable opportunity for them to get that hands-on experience.”
Sawyer fit right in with the team at Lerner Clinic, including the previous medical director, Dr. Emily McCobb, clinic supervisor Lynn Knight, clinic coordinators Paula Dryden and Ari Peluffo, and veterinary technicians Amber Grenier and Marlene Simmons.
“Veterinarians are people who have big hearts and want to help animals,” says Sawyer. “You also need a unique skill set to work at Lerner. You’re not only helping animals but teaching students their first live animal experiences in anesthesia and surgery. The staff are very skilled in what they do, and I’m fortunate to work with them. We’re all on the same page in that effort.”