Life-threatening accident doesn’t deter Jacobs School student from following her dream

A freak accident nearly ended Catherine Lawton’s life. Not only did she survive, but the fourth-year medical student is now on the verge of becoming a doctor.

A native of Lakewood, New York, on the shores of Chautauqua Lake, Lawton graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland with a BS in biomedical engineering.

Shortly after sending off her medical school applications in summer 2019 — including one to the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences — Lawton went on a Labor Day camping trip with friends at a state park in Kentucky.

Then the unthinkable happened: One night, an oak tree fell on her tent.

“There was no storm or anything, it was just an accident,” Lawton explains. “There was no one to blame, it was just a tragedy all around. A lot of luck and a lot of unluck.”

She narrowly survived the horrific ordeal.

Lawton suffered two collapsed lungs and a fractured pelvis; her back was broken in 10 places. She had part of her bowel removed and incurred injuries to other internal organs. Her left leg remains paralyzed.

“They said going into the ER, my blood pressure was 40 over nothing, so I am very, very lucky to be here, and even luckier to be on my own rehabilitation journey and to get to walk again,” Lawton says.

She spent 70 days in the hospital — one month in Kentucky and another month in the Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospital, Beachwood.

UB had accepted Lawton, but since she was unable to graduate from Case Western on schedule due to her hospitalization, she delayed her entry into medical school by a year.

Lawton had a unique admissions interview at the Jacobs School.

“At the time I interviewed, I was still very injured and mainly bedridden. I was spending 21 hours a day lying down in bed,” she says.

She showed up at the Jacobs School in her wheelchair and found that she was exhausted after an extensive tour of the school.

After consulting with school officials, she was allowed to conduct her interviews while lying in a patient bed in the school’s Behling Human Simulation Center.

Although Lawton never gave up on her dream of medical school, she admits she did have some doubts about whether it could be done.

“I was lucky UB took a chance on me. The Jacobs School has been very supportive but has also allowed me to define my own needs, giving me space to advocate for myself,” she says.

A prime example is adaptive scrubbing techniques for sterilizing the forearm crutches Lawton uses.

“It started during my OB-GYN rotation,” she says. “The nurse manager of the OR I was in took me inside and said, ‘this can’t happen; this has never been done.’ They said they would accommodate me by giving me a seat on the wall.”

“And to me, the worst thing you can do is to take me out of the game.”

That’s when Steven D. Schwaitzberg, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor and chair of surgery, and Samantha Bordonaro, assistant dean for student and academic affairs, stepped in to initiate conversations on how to accommodate Lawton during her surgery rotation.

“They said, ‘this student wants to participate; let’s get her there.’ That opened the door,” Lawton says.

Lawton performed a medical literature search and found nothing on the topic.

Prompted by Schwaitzberg’s encouragement, she wrote about her experience and the resulting paper, “Accommodating Learners: An Adaptive Approach to Surgical Hand Preparation With Crutches,” co-authored by Lawton and Schwaitzberg, was published in the Journal of Surgical Education in December 2024.

“With my engineering background, it is very serendipitous because I had learned how to design these devices and now I am using them,” Lawton says. “It helped with the framework. The teamwork of the nursing staff, and even the cleaning staff, helped me hone this protocol to be able to sterilize myself.”

Lawton was able to use the technique to scrub in on more than 40 cases — including laparoscopic, thyroid and general bowel surgeries, C-sections and robotic thoracic surgeries.

Bordonaro says Lawton has blazed a trail for others to follow.

“Catherine is an incredible student who, despite challenges, has always been committed to being an active member of the clinical team,” she says. “Due to her advocacy and willingness to address these challenges, she has also paved the way for other students as we strive to make sure that our medical education programs are accessible to all.”

Beyond the classroom and clinical rotations, Lawton has been active in her advocacy by being a co-founder and former president of the UB chapter of Medical Students with Disability and Chronic Illness.

“The chapter stands as an example that it can be done,” Lawton says. “I’ve learned not only that people with disabilities can become doctors, but that they should become doctors.”

Lawton says she used to be nervous about how patients would see her as a doctor on crutches because, stereotypically, doctors are always the picture of health. But she was surprised to find that her condition actually resonated with patients and helped build a rapport.

Lawton has also volunteered with People Against Trafficking Humans and has been a former head manager of the organization’s free, student-run clinic that serves survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence, and also doubles as a suboxone clinic.

Outside academics, Lawton is involved in a number of extracurricular activities, including adaptive skiing and painting.

“I have always been artistic, and after the accident there was a lot of downtime because I was lying flat,” she says. “I actually joked that I would have a canvas set up and paint the bottom and then have to raise the hospital bed to paint the top.

“For me, it was an important way to live vicariously through the paintings. I grew up a country girl and loved nature, so that was really important to me in my own healing.”

Lawton has applied to physical medicine and rehabilitation residency programs.

“I’m hoping to further specialize in neuro rehab of some sort, whether it’s spinal cord injury or brain injury,” she says. “I like the adaptive sports side of the field as well and also engineering solutions.”

Lawton is elated she chose UB for medical school.

“I love the wide range of topics you get exposed to at the Jacobs School. I feel what they are doing here is something really special, very patient-centered and holistic,” she says.

“It has been such a learning experience. I feel like I have aged 10 years — in a good way. A lot of life was lived here.”