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K-State Today

November 5, 2015

Women's health expert to address maternal mortality in Nov. 9 lecture

Submitted by Communications and Marketing

A doctor who specializes in women's reproductive health issues will present a lecture at Kansas State University at 1:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in Town Hall at the Leadership Studies Building.

Doug Laube, an obstetrician and gynecologist, will present "Why Women Die: Social Determinants of Maternal Mortality." The free lecture, which is open to the public, is part of the Jefferson Fellows Lecture Series and is sponsored by the K-State women's studies department with support from the K-State president's office.

Laube received his medical degree from the University of Iowa where he also completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology in 1974. From 1974 to 1976, he served in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps at the Quantico Marine Corps Education and Development Command. He received a master's degree in health science education from the University of Iowa in 1978 followed by 17 years as a faculty member. During that time, he received 10 medical student teaching awards. He became chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin in 1993, serving in that capacity until September 2006.

In May 2006, Laube became president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, where he as served for 22 years as an oral examiner. He also was active with the Council on Residency Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology, which he chaired from 1996 to 1999; the National Board of Medical Examiners; and the United States Medical Licensing Exam.

Laube has a long record of international service, including working with educational development programs in the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from the mid-1990s through 2000, and serving as an educational consultant to assist in curriculum development for postgraduate education in maternal health in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. Most recently, he has served as an educational consultant for a joint project between the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Federation of Central American Societies of Ob/Gyn in unifying postgraduate residency curricula in six Central American countries: Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. In 2010-2011, he was selected as a Jefferson Science fellow under a program jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the National Academy of Science. As a fellow, he spent a year in Washington, D.C., working at the United States Agency for International Development on population and reproductive health issues.

In addition to teaching resident physicians at the University of Wisconsin, Laube is working with Planned Parenthood and with the Wisconsin State Department of Health, addressing the issue of maternal health outcomes/disparities. This work also involves other national reproductive health boards, including Physicians for Reproductive Choice and the Centering Health Care Institute.