The Alumni Angle: Professor Impacting Surgical Profession Through Research and Education
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A Tau Beta Pi fellowship helped put Dr. Neumayer through her first year of medical school.
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Utilizing problem-solving skills rooted in her educational background, Dr. Leigh Neumayer (B.S. 1981) is making a positive impact on the lives of patients, medical students and residents as Professor of Surgery at the University of Utah. With an interest in math and physics and a mechanically inclined mind, Dr. Neumayer knew that engineering science was a good path for her and would provide an excellent background for the medical profession.
After leaving CSU, Dr. Neumayer earned her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine, as well as her master's degree in clinical research design and statistical analysis from the University of Michigan. Today, Dr. Neumayer serves on a multidisciplinary team treating breast cancer at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, and is a specialist in surgery of the thyroid and parathyroid glands. She holds adjunct appointments in obstetrics and gynecology, as well as family and preventative medicine, and is principal and co-investigator on a number of research projects in the medical field.
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Dr. Leigh Neumayer performs surgery on a patient at the University of Utah School of Medicine. |
In addition to improving the care surgical patients receive, Dr. Neumayer works to bring more women into the surgical field. As principal author of a University of Utah study on the perceptions of women medical students and their influence on career choice, Dr. Neumayer has found that women's choice of surgery as a career was strongly associated with a higher proportion of women on the surgical faculty. Today, just over 20% of residents in surgery are women in comparison to around 50% in medical school classes.
Dr. Neumayer has continued to support women in the surgical field by letting them do more in the operating room, and by showing them that being a mom and a surgeon are not mutually exclusive. Dr. Neumayer and her husband David have three children. Although now residing in Utah, Dr. Neumayer will never forget her experiences at CSU, especially the camaraderie with her classmates, and two of the professors that had a strong influence on her, Drs. Michael Histand and Michael Wells.