About Laura Cassidy

Laura Cassidy is a breast cancer surgeon, a volunteer, and a mother. Born in Mobile, Alabama, Laura attended the University of Alabama as an undergraduate, and went to medical school at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Laura was one of the first women to be accepted into a general surgery residency at Harbor-UCLA in Los Angeles, at a time when there were few women surgeons anywhere.

While in residency at Harbor-UCLA, Laura met Bill attending a Bible Study for people who worked in the local hospitals. After they married, Laura and Bill decided that they would move to Baton Rouge because they felt it was a better place to raise their children. Baton Rouge was Bill’s hometown, and not too far from Laura’s family in Mobile.

Laura served as Chief of Surgery at Earl K. Long Medical Center. After a few years Laura left EKL and went into private practice for the treatment of breast diseases and breast cancer. At that time women were less aware of the need for mammograms and insurance companies were less likely to cover all the necessary procedures, so Laura and a group of doctors started Women In Need Gain Support (WINGS), which sponsored health fairs to promote women’s health. Laura lent her support to the YWCA’s program Encore Plus, which works to increase awareness of and services for breast cancer and cervical cancer. Laura also participated in the Greater Baton Rouge Community Clinic, an organization of local doctors, dentists, and surgeons who provide their services for free to uninsured working women and men of limited income.

Laura and Bill’s son, Will, was born in 1994, and their daughters Meg in 1997 and Kate in 2001. All three Cassidy children go to public schools in Baton Rouge.  Laura and Bill are advocates for school choice and believe it should be the parents, not the government, who decide where children attend school. In the spring of 2006 Laura retired from her medical practice to spend more time with their growing children. Laura is an active volunteer in her children’s schools and serves on various boards that focus on health and children’s education.