Alumnus provides life-saving care to children
Patricio Lau ’09, M.D. ’13 took a leap of faith in 2009, entrusting his education to a new medical school. Dr. Lau was accepted by nine schools, but his heart was set on the one that would allow him to blaze a trail – as one of FIU’s first medical students.
Lau was driven to serve the local community, which had encouraged and supported him since emigrating from Nicaragua when he was 15 years old. Ten years later, he has fulfilled his dream. He is a pediatric surgeon at Nicklaus Children’s Health System in Miami.
“I’m now serving the same community that served me,” Lau says. He empathizes daily with patients and parents from multiple nationalities who are struggling with language and cultural barriers at a challenging time in their lives.
Lau often works with parents who just learned their newborn will need surgery to help their bodies function correctly. What may be trivial for some parents whose kids don’t have an issue, Lau says, is huge for a mom and dad whose baby isn’t able to have a bowel movement, for example.
After medical school, Lau completed his residency at Baylor College of Medicine and a fellowship at Nicklaus. His training reaffirmed to him that it’s not just learning surgery, it’s learning how to take care of people.
“When you help a child, you help the whole family,” Lau says. It’s this impact that Lau first witnessed when he interned at what was then Miami’s Children’s Hospital; it motivates him and provides energy through what can sometimes be an 11-hour surgery.
Lau —who is married and has two boys, 10 and 12 — was the first in his family to graduate from a university. He inspired his younger sister Lee Seng Lau to pursue higher education. She is now a doctoral student in biomedical sciences at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.