Feeding the medical pipeline
Instructor combines love for medicine, education
Katie Meier was on track to become a physician when a detour to Africa altered her plans. Though she’s not practicing medicine, she’s impacting the future of Montana’s medical community. As the instructor of Medical Careers and EMT courses at Billings Career Center, she has inspired countless young Montanans to pursue careers in the medical field.
Katie — “Ms. Meier” to her class — loves to see her former students succeed in their chosen fields. She’s got a wall full of their photos, reflecting the lives she’s touched and the careers she’s nurtured. She also works with a broader goal in mind: to strengthen and sustain Montana’s health care community.
“I don’t know if people realize how dire our health care industry is,” she says. “Fifty-two of 56 of Montana’s counties are medically underserved. And 48 percent of Montana’s nurses plan to retire or leave nursing in the next five years.”
Some of Katie’s alumni are on trajectories to become doctors, dentists and veterinarians. Others save lives as EMTs, pursue research in the lab and care for the elderly in our local nursing homes. Not only have so many found success in the medical field, but countless among them have adopted her philosophy of “paying it forward.”
This August marks Katie’s 10th year at the Career Center. During that time, roughly 800 young Montanans have taken her courses. She teaches biology and anatomy, all the while emphasizing relevance by setting up rotations and opportunities in real-world situations. She also models professionalism and exemplifies the value of networking.
Glancing around Katie’s classroom, you’ll see mannequins lying prone on stretchers, waiting for students to practice their hands-on skills. If you look up, you might also notice a female mannequin’s head peering down from the ceiling. The oddity is the remnant of a practical joke, evidence that Katie’s class is not only rigorous but fun.
As Katie talks, she speaks directly and at rapid-fire speed, as if wanting to pack in as much information as limited time allows. She pours boundless energy into her students — whether they choose paths that require years of higher education or skills they can learn on the job.
“They might come in with pre-conceived ideas,” she says. “It’s fun to see their reflections after (a rotation).”
Knowing that Montana’s needs extend far beyond Billings, she has broadened her reach as the statewide leader of HOSA, an international organization somewhat similar to 4-H or FFA, that targets students interested in medicine. In that role, she shares her passions with hundreds more high school students each year, many of whom gather for the organization’s annual spring competition.
“It really blends with what we are doing in the classroom,” she says.
Katie, a Great Falls native and outdoors enthusiast, changed her career path after graduating from Gonzaga University with a degree in exercise physiology. Rather than apply immediately to medical school, she decided to take a gap year to follow Gonzaga’s philosophy of giving back to the community.
She signed up for the Peace Corps and soon found herself stationed in Zambia, living with a host family in a mud hut that had no running water. It was an eight-hour bike ride to the nearest fellow Peace Corps volunteer.
“It was pretty wild,” she says. “I had never even been on a commercial airplane at that point.”
It was in Zambia — between teaching and working with adults on a sustainable aqua-culture project — that she discovered her love for teaching.
“That’s where I learned how empowering education could be,” she says.
It was also there, as she collaborated with other Peace Corps volunteers, that she came to fully appreciate the value of networking.
“You learned to tap into other people who knew more than you,” she says. “It taught me to be resourceful.”
The life lessons she learned at Gonzaga and Africa prepared her well when she returned to Montana and took a teaching position in Augusta.
“I thought I’d be there one year,” she says. “It sucked me in for six years.”
Though she loved her time there, she sought new horizons and left Augusta to work for GEAR UP, a program aimed at assisting struggling schools. Yet, the position was too far removed from the classroom. So, when the medical careers position opened up at Billings Career Center, she applied with a bit of trepidation. She wasn’t sure Montana’s biggest city would offer the sense of community she had come to crave.
“I didn’t really expect to find that in Billings,” she says. “But I did.”
The move launched a new chapter for Katie. Not only does her job meld her passions for medicine and education, but her experience in the Magic City has strengthened her resolve to give back. During board meetings or over a cup of coffee, she’s become an expert at fostering connections with the entire healthcare community.
“You don’t have to do it all alone,” she says. “I’m able to provide not only my expertise but access to so many other people.”
Katie relies on those connections — from the hospitals to fire departments to the Montana Bioscience Alliance and even Big Sky Economic Development — to link students with a wide variety of opportunities and to update herself on local trends and needs.
She’s constantly impressed to witness so many parties collaborating for the good of Montana’s medical field. She’s also been overwhelmed by the support she’s received, whether it be to place a student in a rotation or to request a letter of recommendation.
“There’s just this bank of people,” she says. “I’ve never not had a request met with an enthusiastic ‘yes.’”
Such connections cement Katie’s belief in the power of mentorship. She stresses the far-reaching impacts of even a brief job shadow or a 20-minute talk by a professional.
“That one person doesn’t just influence the lives of the ones right in front of them, but that investment gets paid forward and compounded as those students go on to influence others,” she says.
Lauren Larson, one of Katie’s — “Ms. Meier’s,” she clarifies — former students is one of those who perpetuate that cycle. Lauren took Katie’s class as a senior at West High, went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Rocky Mountain College and topped it off by graduating from the school’s physician assistant program in 2023. Today she works as a PA with the gynecologic oncology group at Intermountain Health. Taking Katie’s philosophy to heart, she has already mentored medical career students in the operating room.
Lauren describes her former teacher as passionate, driven and “oh, so kind.”
“She’s a friend to all of her students and she loves to celebrate her alumni as they go off into the world and accomplish great things,” Lauren says.
Energized by her current role, Katie hopes her efforts make a difference in her students’ lives as well as for the future of Montana’s medical community. She loves to follow updates on her classes’ Instagram group and she feels especially rewarded to see so many of them — like Lauren — deciding to stay in Montana.
“They say, ‘This place has invested in me. I see myself as working and developing a career here’,” Katie says.
As Katie reflects, she mentions how her core objectives align so well with the Career Center’s motto: rigor, relevance and relationships.
“It’s a privilege getting to be a part of it all” she says, referring to her students, her partnerships and the unwritten future. “Seeing the fruits of that, of staying in touch — that’s my reward.”
