By Deborah Wormser

From the time she was young, Dr. Elizabeth Sloan knew she did not want to pursue medicine. During her sophomore year in college, however, her life took a dramatic change of course that led to a change of heart.

Dr. Sloan explained that while she was growing up in the Dallas suburb of Highland Park, she had wanted to be a veterinarian. But when her dog got injured and needed stitches, young Elizabeth nearly fainted watching the procedure.

Dr. Elizabeth Sloan

“I decided I’d never do medicine. I thought I could never handle it,” she said.

Eventually, she went to Clemson University in South Carolina as a bioengineering major and adored the field.

“I loved working with my hands, and I have always liked math and science so engineering was right up my alley. I’m very visual and I like figuring out how things work and solving problems,” she said.

However, during her second year of college the former competitive high school golfer went from being very healthy to very sick. “I was having trouble getting dressed and turning doorknobs. My joints were really, really bad. I was 1,000 miles away from home and unable to do anything,” she recalled.

She was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and medication greatly improved her condition. The experience sparked her curiosity.

“I kept looking things up and doing research on my own and discovered that children (age 18 and under) could get the disease, too. I found it intellectually interesting,” she said.

The following summer, she found an internship at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, doing research and shadowing in the clinic. “I just fell in love with patient care,” she said.

Dr. Sloan is the recipient of the 2015 Eliot Goldings Award in Rheumatology, which recognizes the most outstanding medical student in rheumatology. The award honors Dr. Eliot A. Goldings, a faculty member in the Division of Rheumatic Diseases who died in 1988 at age 40. Dr. Goldings joined the division in 1978 and distinguished himself as a scholar, teacher, and clinician.

“Elizabeth has impressed me with her focus and tenacity. From the time I first met her as a college student doing summer research in my Scottish Rite clinic, throughout medical school and a rotation on rheumatology, she has never lost sight of her goal to become a pediatric rheumatologist,” said Dr. Marilynn S. Punaro, Professor of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern, who also serves as Master of Fashena College at UT Southwestern Medical School. “The intellectual curiosity that drives her to look beyond the obvious, as well as the compassion she brings to the bedside, make her well-suited for this career. I am thrilled that she has chosen to join a rare subspecialty and improve the care of an underserved population of children.”

UT Southwestern was Dr. Sloan’s first choice for medical school, and she has matched to Children’s Medical Center in general pediatrics, the next step in her goal of becoming a pediatric rheumatologist.

“I can’t help but relate to the patients. I know the medications and what it’s like to take them and their side effects. It gives me a unique perspective,” she said, adding that she likes the long-term relationships rheumatologists have with their patients.

Dr. Sloan also is looking forward to research opportunities that rheumatic diseases offer.

“There’s a lot the medical world doesn’t know about them, so there’s room for discovery and I find that fascinating,” she said.