SHREVEPORT – When the COVID-19 pandemic stalled her junior year of high school in 2020, Tara Lauther decided she’d accelerate her education.
And she never stopped.
The 20-year-old New Yorker became the second-youngest student to complete a Master of Health Administration degree from LSUS, her fourth degree since 2021.
Lauther enrolled in community college classes in Long Island, New York, while finishing her high school degree, obtaining both degrees within two months of each other in 2021.
Two short years later, Lauther had a bachelor’s degree in health sciences with a concentration in healthcare administration, which led her to explore MHA programs.
“I came into college being very clinical oriented, but I had never considered healthcare administration until I started that concentration,” Lauther said. “I was applying to medical school, so (an MHA degree) felt like a great use of that year to strengthen my administration background.”
Lauther completed her MHA degree in 12 months using LSUS’s accelerated, seven-week terms. She finished her degree in July with summer commencement exercises occurring next Friday.
The Long Island native is applying to medical school with a dream of being a physician either in cardiology or pediatric care.
She’s contemplating adding another master’s degree, an MBA from LSUS, during the medical school application cycle.
Lauther said she’s always been interested in the sciences, but her dad’s medical diagnosis of coronary artery disease when she was 14 launched her on a path to medical research.
“I was involved in my high school’s science research program, and then I started to research my dad’s condition and fell in love with clinical research,” said Lauther, who added that her dad is now healthy. “It was a great segue way into medical research and is why I want to be a physician.”
While her rapid educational attainment might suggest that Lauther spends the majority of her waking hours doing schoolwork, she’s squirreled away time to pursue other opportunities.
Lauther is a medical assistant at a pediatric urgent care clinic and an intern with the United Nations, something she started as an undergraduate.
During the MHA program, Lauther flashed her innovative skills when she won an entrepreneurial competition called Pilot Pitch in which LSUS students develop a business plan over several months with guidance from business faculty.
Lauther leaned on her medical experience to present “Tag It,” a tracking system that would assist hospitals and clinics to better manage their medicine inventory and reduce medical errors and waste from expired medicines.
While Lauther hasn’t further pursued that product line, which would use radio frequency identification tags that can be scanned, since winning the competition’s graduate student division in November, there’s always the possibility of future exploration.
Lauther’s research with the United Nations stems from the Unitive Thematic Cluster, a group of non-governmental organizations that focuses on global unity and interconnectedness. Lauther cofacilitated and served as a youth respondent for a UN High-Level Political Forum that explored those topics in July.
“I definitely want to work on the clinical front of medicine, but I also want to contribute to greater international understanding of medicine through an organization like the World Health Organization,” Lauther said. “I’ve done research on community health projects, and a lot of my passion lies in community health.”
Because her MHA degree was all online, Lauther enrolled in flight school and is working toward her pilot’s license for single-engine airplanes.
“My grandfather was in the Air Force, and I’ve always been interested in aviation,” Lauther said. “Because I’m completing my degree remotely, I had a perfect opportunity to pursue this.
“Maybe after medical school and becoming a doctor, I can look into getting my own plane.”
Sleep is something at which Lauther says she “does her best,” but that doesn’t mean Lauther is all work and no play.
Lauther hopped on commercial flights for trips to Italy and Spain while working on her master’s degree, bringing her computer to complete her assignments.
“Working on Long Island, pursuing a master’s degree in Louisiana, the program provides a lot of flexibility with how you can spend your time,” Lauther said. “And LSUS delivers the same quality of education because the professors are engaged and supportive.
“The key is to have interactions with your professors in order to experience the same caliber of learning that you’d have in person.”
