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Life experiences, knowledge shape graduate's path by Cindy Abole Public Relations Elizabeth Logan is not your typical hard-science background medical student. If anything, Logan is more atypical with her specialties and interests ranging from Russian language and culture, international affairs, travel, public health, wellness-exercise to the general well-being of children.   Logan, M.D., chose medicine after exploring a variety of other experiences and choices.   Dr. Elizabeth Logan Penn  “Medicine was probably more instinctual to me rather than a long-held interest or desire,” Logan said. “I did not recognize it until after I attended college and started to travel. Now I know this is where I want to be after what I’ve done and accomplished.”   Logan, who will be among 137 College of Medicine graduates receiving their degrees this morning, celebrates another milestone in her young, remarkable life journey. The South Carolina native has almost traveled full circle along a pathway filled with adventure and incredible learning experiences and fed by an insatiable thirst for knowledge. The result is a worldly, compassionate individual who wants to commit herself to the service of others through medicine and a broad perspective of health care.   Born Frances Elizabeth Polk Logan in Charleston but raised in Beaufort, Logan was the middle of five children to William Thomas Logan and Barbara Aimar Goodwin. She attributes her preliminary interests in medicine and doctoring to her mom, a home health pharmacist, who prepares intravenous medications and delivers them to the poor, elderly and homebound patients living in the rural areas of the Beaufort Lowcountry and surroundings. “Mom’s country doctoring was a big influence on me growing up,” Logan said.   An exceptional student, Logan excelled in her studies so that by age 15, she spent a year abroad studying and living in Moscow, Russia, during an especially tumultuous political time shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.      Her interest in the Russian language and international affairs led her to attend Georgetown University which allowed her to take classes in international health and health policy and affairs. Following college, her interests were swayed towards a career in public health with a possibility of working in the Peace Corps.   Following graduation in 1998, she took a year off with a friend and returned to explore Russia and its neighboring countries, China, Tibet, Siberia and parts of Central Asia traveling  by foot, river boat, train, bus and air. During her journey, she came to a realization that she wanted to pursue some other clinical interests and decided that public health and medicine were what she desired.      Knowing that she had to brush up on her sciences such as chemistry, biology and physics, she attended Loyola University in Chicago and took classes, volunteered and applied to the University of South Carolina’s School of Public Health. She received her master’s in public health in 2002 and immediately applied to medical school at MUSC.      Her pathway was already set.   Although she felt challenged to her limits during the basic science years, she thrived during the clinical rotational experiences. When it came time to select a specialty interest, Logan admits she had not previously considered pediatrics.      “It was everything I wanted in medicine,” Logan recalled. “So much focuses on prevention and public health. There’s also the chance to influence young people’s health at a very early age. It makes a difference when you can work with patients when it comes to health outcomes,” Logan said.   She was influenced by several key pediatric faculty and exceptional role models: Mike Bowman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics and director of the Division of Pediatric Pulmonology, Allergy and Immunology and Sherron Jackson, M.D., associate professor of Pediatrics and co-director of the pediatric clerkship.      Logan worked with Bowman for two months as a third-year medical student and in the summer for a month in Bowman’s pediatric pulmonary elective.   “Elizabeth sparkles among her patients and families,” said Bowman, who worked with her following inpatients on the ward, nursery and PICU, plus seeing patients in clinics. “It really is remarkable how Elizabeth chose medicine from the path she has already taken. Her commitments and determination have helped her become more certain on the choices in her life.”      “I do think it is important that we as physicians and pediatricians especially, gain some additional life experiences,” said Jackson. “So much of what we learn during residency is not in a book and can’t be studied. We practice medicine as an art by incorporating knowledge from our experiences. Elizabeth exemplifies these traits very well.”   What’s next for the world traveler-turned-scholar-and-medical practitioner?   Logan married fellow medicine graduate Eli Penn May 13. The two will remain at MUSC to complete their residencies. Logan is in pediatrics while Penn is in internal medicine. After residency, Logan will fulfill a National Health Service Corps scholarship which commits her to practice medicine in a rural/inner city community for four years.      “Elizabeth is a model student,” Jackson said. “We’re excited that she chose MUSC pediatrics and we chose her. I have no doubt that she’ll make an excellent physician.”      Pozdravlaiyu!     Friday, May 19, 2006 Catalyst Online is published weekly, updated as needed and improved from time to time by the MUSC Office of Public Relations for the faculty, employees and students of the Medical University of South Carolina. Catalyst Online editor, Kim Draughn, can be reached at 792-4107 or by email, catalyst@musc.edu. Editorial copy can be submitted to Catalyst Online and to The Catalyst in print by fax, 792-6723, or by email to catalyst@musc.edu. To place an ad in The Catalyst hardcopy, call Island Publication at 849-1778, ext. 201.