Rarified Air Tyler Lackland recently matched into IU cardiothoracic surgery integrated residency

Jeff Williams:
Welcome to Community Voices, a production of NPR Illinois. I'm your co-host Jeff Williams. In the studio with me today, Tyler Lacklin. Tyler, how's it going?
Tyler Lackland:
I am doing fantastic. How are you doing?
Jeff Williams:
I'm very good. And also in the studio is her mother, Tammy Lacklin. Tammy, hello.
Tammy Lackland:
How are you?
Jeff Williams:
Oh, she said a little something. Okay, I like it. I like it. So anyway, Tyler is in the studio today and her journey, though just starting out, sounds absolutely amazing. Tyler, do you want to tell us a little bit about what you have going on right now?
Tyler Lackland:
Yes! So, I am a fourth-year medical student at St. Louis University School of Medicine. I'm actually a graduate from the University of Illinois in Springfield.
Jeff Williams:
Okay.
Tyler Lackland:
And I just recently matched into a cardiothoracic surgery integrated residency. which is essentially a six-year residency where I will be board certified at the end of it as a cardiothoracic surgeon, so heart and lung surgery. I have a love and an interest in transplant surgery, aortic surgery, what have you. And I'm just, I'm really excited to finally reach my dream and be at my dream program and get things going.
Jeff Williams:
Well, first off, congratulations on that. sounds amazing. So, this term ‘matched’, let people know what that means, what that represents.
Tyler Lackland:
Yeah, so as a medical student, you basically go through medical school all four years. You're learning about the body, you're learning about physiology, diseases, et cetera. Around your third year, you're deciding… ‘what subspecialty do I want to do? Do I want to do family medicine, OBGYN, cardiothoracic surgery?’ And then during your fourth year is when you enter what's called ‘match’ season. So, you've now applied to that specific subspecialty for me, cardiothoracic surgery. and you interviewed all these different places, they interview you, and then essentially, you're deciding what programs do you want to go into. You'll interview at these programs, and these programs will rank their interviewees, and then you do what's called a match. So, there's an algorithm that will take your rank list and the program's rank lists and see which applicant to program is the best match. And then on March 20th, Friday, March 20th, 2026, we open an envelope. We have no idea where we're going before. We open an envelope and then we find out where it is that we're going and where our future will be.
Jeff Williams:
Right on. So, right now you don't know yet?
Tyler Lackland:
I do know. I'm going to Indiana University in Indianapolis.
Jeff Williams:
That's what I thought! Right!? Oh, so you'll be in Indianapolis on the Indianapolis campus. Well, yeah, congratulations on that! That is fantastic. Now also that's kind of somewhat like rarefied air, correct?
Tyler Lackland:
Yeah. It's like, it's one of those things where ‘match’ week is incredibly unpredictable. On Monday, so that Monday we find out if we matched and then we must wait until Friday to find out where (we ‘match’). So, it's just, it's exciting and scary and daunting, but fun! It's a mix of emotions. And I think when you open the envelope, at least for me… when I opened up the envelope and saw that I matched at my number one, it was so much emotional weight that was just, I could relax. I was like, I did it!
Jeff Williams:
You did it! Well, that was another thing I was going to ask about. So, you started off at UIS, correct? Okay. So then the procedure, you start to look for other universities… and you said SLU (St. Louis University); so the process of that. You're looking at different universities and seeing where you might want to go. Visiting campuses in this particular case?
Tyler Lackland:
Yeah, kind of. So, throughout my technically junior year at UIS, I kind of decided I wanted to go into medicine. Ironically, I graduated with a degree in criminology, criminal justice, and then had 2 gap years. So, during those gap years… years where I'm not really doing anything medicine related. I was a 911 dispatcher and had just joined the Springfield Police Department. Then I was like, you know what… I'm just not feeling fulfilled yet. I didn't feel like I really found my thing. Having medicine as a default coming into undergrad and being told by someone… in the beginning… ‘You know, like this might not be a field that's accessible for you. You should find something else.’ You know, years later, I'm like, I'm going to try it. I'm going to go for it! So then I took what's called the MCAT, which is the entrance exam into medical school. I did well on that, thankfully. Thank you to my STEM professors here at University of Illinois Springfield… did well on the MCAT. And then pretty much from there, it was just applying to different universities. St. Louis University was my number one. So, when I got that acceptance, I was like, this is it. I found my place. This is where I'm going to go. But yeah, you can do like second look days and visits and stuff like that. But for me, I knew that SLU was going to be my home. So as soon as I got that acceptance, I was there. Love it.
Jeff Williams:
Love it. Right. Tammy, you must be pretty proud of her.
Tammy Lackland:
I am very proud of her. I've watched her through this… through her years. Through her journey. I always tell everybody… everybody always asks; ‘She's from Springfield? Where'd she go to high school?’ And I'm like, she homeschooled herself! So, it was a program where she actually… it was kind of like a college… it was like college courses. It was online. She competed in gymnastics. She would be at the gymnastics meets in between competitions, sitting in a corner with her laptop doing her schooling. And so, when she decided to take this route, I knew she would crush it and do well in the program.
Jeff Williams:
Wow, fantastic. Well, congratulations. Thank you. For sure, man. Absolutely fantastic. So, when did you start to feel like cardiothoracic was the direction, the specific direction?
Tyler Lackland:
Yeah. So, heart and lung surgery for me, like coming into medical school, I knew I wanted to do surgery of some sort. So, I worked at St. John's Hospital before going into med school and had an interaction with the trauma surgeons there. And it was this incredible cinematic experience watching them save someone's life right there on the table. And so for me, that was the initial draw to surgery. When I got to SLU, I tried to like everything but CT surgery, to be honest, because cardiothoracic surgery is time consuming. It's a process that (once) you get into it, you have to really, really love it. So I tried to love everything else. I tried surgical oncology. I tried vascular, colorectal. Nothing was really holding me and giving me that fulfilled feeling like I had mentioned earlier. So then finally I got into thoracic surgery OR. I was watching just a basic lung case and the camera; the robotic camera panned over to the patient's pericardium where you could see the heart beating inside the chest. And from that moment, I was like, I need to see what that's about. What is that? So finally, I got into the cardiac OR, and it was a cabbage case. It ended up going a little bit longer than typical. I want to say I was probably in the OR for about 8 to 10 hours. I had no idea. When I walked into the OR that morning, I was just happy to be there. And then when I blinked, it had been 8 hours later, and I'm like, whoa, I didn't even know that time had passed. And so that's kind of how I realized, I was like, this might be what I want to do.
Jeff Williams:
Right.
Tyler Lackland:
From there, I found myself just trying to get into the cardiac OR as much as possible, seeing as many cases as I could. And somehow, every single case I saw was always cooler than the last one. And then finally, for me, I think the big thing was the patients. So cardiac surgery patients are very, very sick. And I think Out of all the surgical sub-specialties, everyone is always saving a life, right? But with cardiac surgery, I think the mortality aspect of it and the how innocent and delicate the heart is, just seeing how even a millimeter off can make a difference for the patient. And so, knowing that it was that intense, but that you must be the perfectionist with, those are all things where I was like, I think this is for me. This is what I want to do.
Jeff Williams:
Right. Well, even before you started to explain that …it must be something about the intensity, but also… you are right there. Like you said, the heart. You know, I mean, you are right there… in on it. And if you feel that, like you said, like 8, 10 hours passed and it just seemed like time starts to stand still. Yeah (had to feel)… ‘this is my, this is my thing, this is my passion, my love’. It's not like you were thinking’ ‘man, how much longer am I going to be in here?’ If that's the case, then it's probably not for you. Do you know what I mean? Especially in this case, so like you said, if the person is coming in, usually it’s a dire situation for the person. So, to be able to also give them, you know, give them their life back in the way that they want it to be, so.
Tyler Lackland:
I mean, I've had patients that have told me that, before they get their surgery, they're not able to play with their grandkids, they're not able to run, they're not able to walk upstairs, then after they get the surgery, they go back to somewhat of a normal life. And they not only get their quantity back, but they get their quality back. And I think that specifically is what drives me.
Jeff Williams:
Right, love that, love that. So also, this is kind of like a first too, is that correct? It is, yeah.
Tyler Lackland:
So, looking back, I actually had a friend of mine, she texted me and she was like, just so you're one of the first African American integrated cardiothoracic surgery residents at Indiana. And I think what’s awesome about this 2026 match is I'm not the only one. So many of my friends at other institutions are also the first African American males and females of that program.
Jeff Williams:
Really!!
Tyler Lackland:
Okay, very nice. I was like, we are winning this year.
Jeff Williams:
So that is… I love, love it, love it! And so that was all, you're from SLU then, are you saying?
Tyler Lackland:
No, so just, so CT is kind of a small world.
Jeff Williams:
I see.
Tyler Lackland:
So, during the interview trail, you meet and see the same people over and over again.
Jeff Williams:
So, they could, pardon me for interrupting. So, could they be from different parts of the country then? Is that how it is? In the world? Okay, right on!
Tyler Lackland:
Yeah. So, I met a good friend of mine. He's from Japan. He matched at a school in California. And then, one of my other really good friends, she's one of the first African-American females at Northwestern. Another of my friend matched at Maryland. Someone called us the open heart 7! I believe it's been so phenomenal seeing the history that's being made in the field of CT surgery.
Jeff Williams:
Fantastic. If people wanted to learn more information, like more about this field, places where people can go to get more information.
Tyler Lackland:
I'll be honest, I think it is pretty scarce, the amount of information that's present. I will say, so I just started a TikTok channel. I posted my Match Day video, it blew up, and a lot of the people in the comments were like, can you explain, like, what is cardiothoracic surgery? So, my TikTok channel, not to, you know.
Jeff Williams:
No, that's good. That's good to know.
Tyler Lackland:
My TikTok channel, it's TY, Ty, Nicky97, N-I-C-K-Y 97. Or if you just look up Tyler Lackland on TikTok or hashtag cardiothoracic surgery, one of my videos will pop up. But I kind of explain not only what cardiothoracic surgery is, but the processes to get there, the different things you should have in your application, what medical students should know, what your everyday layperson should know. I tried to do a good job of explaining this process because it's confusing and it can be somewhat, feel somewhat hidden and inaccessible. That's how I felt coming in. I had no idea what I was doing. And then, usually what I tell people, I think even if you go on YouTube in this day and age of videos, you can find heart surgeries on YouTube. I usually feel like a lot of times my attendings will actually encourage the patients to go, if you know you're getting a coronary artery bypass graft, go on YouTube and kind of see what it is that the surgery is, so that way you also know what's going on. But the resources are scarce, unfortunately. But I think what's really awesome about this incoming group of students is that we are trying to make this field more accessible. And we're trying to really bring more awareness that this field, like you can do it if you really want to. And you have us as your mentors.
Jeff Williams:
Exactly, right. Examples. Yeah, definitely. That's super. That's great too, because like if anybody else, if they're coming up, though you are young, like anybody else who is coming up, or actually it doesn't even have to be necessarily, it could be somebody older and they're still searching and they're like either in school, going back to school, or if they're thinking about something like this, they could kind of go and find out even more information from, like you said, your TikTok. Is that really pretty much the main social media thing that you use?
Tyler Lackland:
Yeah, so I have a LinkedIn. I encourage people to go check it out. That's more of just what I'm doing professionally. I also have an Instagram. My Instagram My program is ‘sootyler97’, @sootyler97… where you can follow my journey. I'll be posting on both of those as I start residency. I'll start residency June 17th. So, it's my goal to take everyone with me from PGY1, my first year of residency, all the way until hopefully retirement.
Jeff Williams:
Right, Well, once again, we are in the studio with Tyler Lackland and her mother, Tammy Lackland. Congratulations to both of you. This is a fantastic journey that's continuing on, you know.
Tammy Lackland:
Yes, it's been fun watching her go through this journey. And it was interesting even with the TikTok, from one night of having 300 followers to it being 5,000 the next day and everybody saying things and calling themselves her internet aunties now.
Jeff Williams:
Right, So it's been.
Tammy Lackland:
Really cool to watch people follow her journey and videos that she does.
Jeff Williams:
I love that. So, for you, like, the decision as far as like with homeschooling, when did you start to like explore that?
Tammy Lackland:
It was all her. She did two years at one of the private schools here and she decided that wasn't.
Jeff Williams:
It just wasn't right(?)
Tammy Lackland:
So, we researched the programs, found a program. She graduated a year early from high school through this program. Then she made the decision. She went off to Bradley for a year.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, Bradley and Peoria, yeah.
Tammy Lackland:
She originally was supposed to go down to West Virginia. She'd gotten a scholarship to do Acro Cheer.
Jeff Williams:
Oh, really? Okay.
Tammy Lackland:
And decided at the last minute she didn't want to go that far away from home.
Jeff Williams:
Right. That's in Morgantown?.
Tammy Lackland:
Where was that? Philippi, Philippi, West Virginia.
Jeff Williams:
Philippi, okay.
Tammy Lackland:
I went to Bradley, you know, for a couple years, decided she didn't want to go that route and decided to stay here and go to UIS. And that's, I think… when the journey really started was when she got here… to UIS.
Jeff Williams:
Right. If a person tries to decide their journey to… (sometimes) you don't know where that journey is going to go. You have to just kind of let step by step the things unfold so that the journey comes out the right way.
Tammy Lackland:
And I just, I always tell, you know, friends of mine always say, well, how, why didn't you stop her from this? And I'm a firm believer in you've got to follow your own path. I've lived my life. I, you know, I'm here if you fall. I'm here when you're up. So you got to, you can't force children nowadays, it's a different breed of kids out there. You kind of got to let them follow their journeys. And so that's, I just kind of stood back and I just told her, whatever you do, I support you. I've got you. Let's see where it ends up.
Jeff Williams:
So.
Tammy Lackland:
This is where we're at!
Jeff Williams:
It's good stuff. There's good stuff for sure.
Tammy Lackland:
One of the 2% or 3% of African Americans in the cardiothoracic surgery world.
Jeff Williams:
So yeah, wow.
Tammy Lackland:
She's trailblazing. And so, I'm just here for the ride.
Jeff Williams:
Yeah. Well, congratulations once again to both of you for Tyler Lackland, Tammy Lackland for coming in and talking to us in the studio today. It's been great. Thank you.
Tyler Lackland:
Thank you for having me.
Jeff Williams:
Thank you… definitely! Community Voices is a production of NPR Illinois.