Making an Impact: Alyssa Laeser

by Chuck Cascio, Staff Writer

Alyssa Laeser

In her junior year at the University of Florida, Alyssa Laeser received a letter from the school telling her she had to declare a major because she’d accumulated too many credits across different subjects. The 1993 graduate of South Lakes High School called home for advice from her father, Reston podiatrist Dr. Bruce Vogel.

“He suggested that I arrange to shadow a physician assistant,” Alyssa recalls, “which I did at the Fairfax Hospital Emergency Room.”

The experience had an immediate impact. Alyssa chose to major in health science education, and with that decision—and the ER exposure—her career in medicine took off. “In the steps to becoming a physician assistant,” she says, “I drove ambulances as an EMT, performed Emergency Vehicle Operations Course training using the hydraulic rescue tool known as the ‘Jaws of Life,’ and flew in emergency helicopters to treat patients.”

After earning her certification, Alyssa spent 15 years working as a physician assistant at Reston Hospital and in several emergency rooms, including the Fauquier Hospital ER.

A turning point came about 20 years ago. “I had an ER patient who had suffered a stroke and the neurologist on call was very far away. So the nurse wheeled a TV into the room and the neurologist performed the first telemedicine exam I had ever seen,” she recalls. “I remember thinking, if we can use telemedicine for major things like a stroke, why not for minor issues like sore throats and colds?”

That experience inspired Alyssa to launch Mobile Medical Health, her woman-owned local small business offering telemedicine consultations, house calls, and in-office visits. Her company also performs veteran disability exams.

In retrospect, Alyssa acknowledges that the impetus for creating the unique Mobile Medical is deeply rooted in her past. “I grew up in medicine,” she says. “My father had his own practice, which expanded to multiple offices. I gained so much inspiration and knowledge working with him from age 13. I was even the child star of one of his television commercials!”

Not that her childhood in Reston was spent completely at work. Far from it. At Lake Anne Nursery Kindergarten, Alyssa gained some unwanted recognition for “cutting other students’ hair.” At Sunrise Valley Elementary School, she “loved the library with its amazing murals on the wall! I was a voracious reader, and I probably read all of the monster books in the whole school library.” In summer camps at Reston Homeowners Association, she and her friends “sank boats going through the fountain at Lake Anne too many times, and we loved to slip and slide at Brown’s Chapel and to go to the baseball carnival held at the Sheraton.”

As Alyssa’s academic and professional careers merged and grew, there was another major personal influence in the decision she made to start Mobile Medical Health. “I am the proud mom of three very active boys,” she says. “They had many friends, and as a PA, all of their moms would ask me for favors. So, before you know it, I began helping my community avoid travel, germs, and waiting rooms by performing telemedicine and house calls.”

The medical roots in Alyssa’s family run deep, and her oldest son is now at the University of Florida, she says, “pursuing pre-medical studies, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, his aunt who is a nurse, his grandmother who was a respiratory therapist and medical assistant, and me.”

But Alyssa does not intend for the impact she is creating to stop with Mobile Medical Health. She has begun working with local PA programs “to have students rotate through my office, and would like to continue that. I love teaching and mentoring. I plan to start a foundation to help provide scholarships for students to attend PA school.”