Meet Dr. Sarah Jacobson: The Pathologist Who Learned That Changing Your Mind Can Change Your Career

Texas A&M’s newest Assistant Clinical Professor almost became a horticulturist, entered veterinary school convinced pathology wasn’t in her future, and eventually learned one of the most important lessons she now wants to pass along to students: you’re allowed to change your mind.

Dr. Sarah Jacobson has two schnauzer mixes named Rosalind and Franklin, which might be one of the most appropriate pet-naming decisions ever made by a veterinary pathologist. The names are a nod to Rosalind Franklin, whose work was critical to understanding the structure of DNA, and they offer a small glimpse into the kind of person Jacobson is: endlessly curious, deeply interested in science, and always looking for another opportunity to learn something.

That curiosity has carried her through veterinary school, a residency in veterinary clinical pathology, and now into the next stage of her career. Jacobson recently completed her residency and is preparing for her specialty board examination. This fall, she will join Texas A&M University as an Assistant Clinical Professor, combining the diagnostic work she loves with something that has been quietly following her for most of her life: teaching.The funny thing is that very little about her career unfolded according to the original plan.

Veterinary Medicine Wasn’t Always the Plan

Jacobson started college with no intention of going to veterinary school. Had veterinary medicine never entered the picture, she thinks she might have built a career around another part of the natural world entirely.

“I’d like to think I’d be a horticulturist or doing something related to plants,” she says. “I find plants and nature fascinating and love learning about them.”

Whether she ended up surrounded by plants or pathology slides, however, Jacobson suspects teaching would have eventually found its way into her career. She has always loved the process of learning something new and then getting to share that discovery with someone else.

“Regardless of the field I ended up in, I believe I was always destined to be teaching in some way,” she says. “I love learning and sharing what I’m learning. Getting to witness someone learning something for the first time reminds me of the wonder and sense of accomplishment that comes with it when I was first learning.”

That love of teaching eventually became just as important to her career as the medicine itself. Now, as she heads into academia, she has an opportunity to give veterinary students the same kind of moments that helped shape her own path.

Then Pathology Showed Up and Changed Everything

Even after Jacobson decided to pursue veterinary medicine, she thought she had a pretty good idea of what her future would look like. She entered veterinary school expecting to gravitate toward internal medicine or radiology. Pathology wasn’t the specialty she had mapped out for herself, and general practice was something she was quite certain she would never do.

Veterinary school had other ideas.

As she was exposed to different areas of medicine, pathology emerged as the field that clicked. It offered the diagnostic problem-solving and scientific investigation she loved, while also giving her opportunities to keep asking questions and digging deeper into why disease happens. Eventually, she pursued a residency in veterinary clinical pathology and discovered the specialty that would become the foundation of her career.

Then came the other surprise. During residency, Jacobson picked up small animal general practice relief shifts—the very kind of work she had once been convinced she would never do.

“I ate my words,” she says.

Rather than seeing that as evidence that her earlier plans had somehow been wrong, Jacobson now views it as one of the most useful lessons of her veterinary education. Veterinary medicine is far too interconnected to neatly divide everything into subjects you will and won't need someday.

“Medicine is multifaceted and very intertwined, so no lecture topic or hands-on lab is really a waste because you likely will find yourself reviewing that lecture on ‘xyz’ that you swore would never be relevant to the type of medicine you would practice,” she says.

It's why one of the biggest pieces of advice she gives veterinary students today is remarkably simple: keep an open mind.

Changing Your Mind Isn’t the Same as Giving Up

Jacobson describes resilience, humor, and kindness as the three qualities that have helped carry her through veterinary school, residency, and now into a faculty position. But her definition of resilience is different from the traditional idea of choosing a goal and refusing to deviate from it.

“Resilience, to me, is about a willingness to adapt and listen to yourself while in the pursuit of that goal, even if the way you get there or the goal itself is different from what you first imagined,” she says.

For Jacobson, resilience isn't necessarily about stubbornly sticking with Plan A. Sometimes it means having enough confidence to recognize that Plan A isn't right anymore.

That lesson has become one of the things she most wishes she could tell her younger self. Students can put enormous pressure on themselves to decide what kind of veterinarian they are going to become, and changing specialties or career goals can feel like abandoning something they've already invested years in pursuing. Jacobson wants them to know that changing direction doesn't mean they failed.

“You can change your mind,” she says. “That is part of the joy in life and you are not letting anyone, including yourself, down by changing your mind and doing what is better for you.”

Her own career is proof. She changed her mind about veterinary medicine. She changed her mind about which specialty fit her. She even found value in the general practice work she'd once dismissed.

“If you don’t love what you’re doing or don’t feel like this is where your talents shine, then you can pivot!”

Humor and Kindness Made the Journey Better

Resilience may have helped Jacobson navigate changes in direction, but humor has helped her survive the intensity that comes with veterinary training. She sees it as a way to keep life in perspective and, just as importantly, to build relationships with the people going through it alongside her.

Kindness completes the trio. In an academically demanding profession where students and veterinarians can be extraordinarily hard on themselves and each other, Jacobson has made a conscious effort to approach people with a little more grace.

“You never lose anything by being kind,” she says, adding that it helps her remember that “we’re all doing the best we can.”

Those qualities are likely to matter just as much in her new role as anything she learned during her pathology residency. Students remember the professors who made difficult material understandable, but they also remember the professors who made them feel comfortable asking the question they were afraid everyone else already knew the answer to.

Her First Classroom Was Full of Three-Year-Olds

Jacobson actually started teaching long before veterinary medicine entered the picture. Her first paying job as a teenager was teaching martial arts to children between the ages of three and five.

“Talk about wrangling cats,” she jokes.

In retrospect, it wasn't terrible preparation for academia. Teaching very young children requires patience, adaptability, communication, and an ability to recognize when one explanation isn't working and try another. The material Jacobson teaches today may be considerably more complicated, but the fundamental challenge isn't all that different: figure out how to help another person understand something that once seemed impossible.

That process is still what excites her about education. She doesn't simply want students to leave her classroom knowing more pathology. She wants them to leave curious enough to keep learning after the class is over.

Teaching Has Become the Bigger Mission

When Jacobson talks about what she ultimately wants from her career, she doesn't begin with a title, publication, or professional accomplishment. She talks about learning.

“To always be learning and sharing that knowledge with others,” she says of her mission. “It amazes me the impact that educators can have on your life and I don’t take that for granted.”

She understands that a professor can influence much more than whether a student passes an examination. The right educator can introduce someone to a specialty they never considered, help them recognize a talent they didn't realize they had, or completely change what they imagine their career could become.

“My hope is that I can pass down not only knowledge, but a joy for learning, for any student I interact with,” Jacobson says.

Considering that her own career was transformed by discovering possibilities she hadn't originally considered, that mission feels particularly fitting.

Life Outside Veterinary Medicine Keeps Her Grounded

For someone building a career around complicated diagnostics and microscopic details, Jacobson's favorite way to clear her head is refreshingly ordinary. There is no elaborate wellness routine. She wants to be with her family and actually be present for the small parts of life that are easy to rush through.

That might mean taking a walk after dinner, playing in the backyard with Rosalind and Franklin, or reading to her child before bed. She describes it as finding awe in even the most simple and mundane routines.

It's a perspective that mirrors the way she approaches her career. There will always be another examination, another professional milestone, and another thing to learn. But building a meaningful life doesn't require having every step planned in advance.

Texas A&M Students, Keep Your Options Open

This fall, Jacobson will walk into Texas A&M as an Assistant Clinical Professor with the credentials of a clinical pathologist, the curiosity of the horticulturist she might have become, and the perspective of someone whose career looks very different from what she once imagined.

That may be one of the most valuable things she can offer students.

Veterinary school has a way of making people feel as though they should already know exactly where they're headed. Classmates announce specialties. Internship plans begin forming. Residency applications appear on the horizon. It can seem as though everyone else has constructed a perfect map while you're still trying to figure out which direction you're facing.

Jacobson's career is a reminder that the map can change.

You can enter veterinary school thinking you'll become an internist and discover pathology. You can swear you'll never work in general practice and find yourself taking GP relief shifts. You can begin college without veterinary school anywhere in the plan and eventually become the person standing at the front of a veterinary classroom.

Changing your mind doesn't mean you got lost along the way. Sometimes it's exactly how you find the career that fits.

And if it all becomes too much, apparently there is always horticulture. Rosalind and Franklin might have to stay out of the garden, though.