Sven Swanson, 1980 electrical engineering alumnus, spent four years each at Iowa State and the University of Iowa. He has fond memories of both, but when asked which one is his favorite—which he hears a lot—he only has one answer.
“I like both of them. But one is like a friend, and the other is like a best friend,” Swanson says. “They both have their place, and they are different—but they are both important in my life.”
He adds that he is happy with his choice to attend both universities, saying he would recommend either one for the programs he completed—Iowa State for its top-notch engineering and Iowa for its medical program.
But having said all that, he admits, “There’s no comparison: I’m an Iowa State guy all the way.”
Swanson says he was “brainwashed” by his father as far back as he can remember. His father, an ophthalmologist originally from Omaha, attended the University of Nebraska, Iowa State University and the University of Iowa, and he also liked Iowa State best. The two of them always attended Iowa State football games, starting Swanson’s passion for Cyclone athletics as a kid.
Attending games and playing intramurals was only part of Swanson’s happy experience at Iowa State. He says it would probably be easier for him to come up with one thing he didn’t like about his time here than listing all the things he loved, although he couldn’t really think of anything bad.
“The most memorable thing is that there was an opportunity to do anything,” he says. “There were so many ways of being able to take advantage of as much as I could while I was there.”
Swanson took a route similar to his father’s when choosing a career, although it didn’t start out that way. His father was also an engineering student at Iowa State, although he studied chemical engineering and had planned to attend medical school from the beginning.
Swanson, on the other hand, thought about getting his Ph.D. in engineering, saying medical school was the last thing he wanted to do. Somewhere along the way, though, he decided he wanted to be a forensic pathologist, which involves the medical-legal examination of deaths.
Because Swanson looked up to his father, developing similar interests and following in his steps wasn’t hard. “My dad said he wasn’t going to try to force me through it,” he says, “but the example he set, just by what he did in his life, was part of my decision.”
In medical school, Swanson says he was given a broad experience. Similarly, the forensics part of his pathology training, included practice as a part-time medical examiner in Virginia, where he trained at the Commonwealth of Virginia Medical Examiner’s Office with the recently retired chief medical examiner, Dr. Marcella Fierro.
After being exposed to forensics up close, Swanson decided that wasn’t the route he wanted, saying, “When I was doing forensic pathology, I started to develop an interest in cancer diagnosis, which kind of came out of nowhere, but that’s how life goes.”
Swanson continued training in surgical pathology and later took his first job in Durham, North Carolina. He stayed there for about eight and a half years and then relocated to Athens, Georgia, where he’s been ever since.
Soon after he began his current position, the president of the medical staff asked Swanson if he would lead the project to turn the hospital into an approved cancer center. “It had its growing pains, but it was an interesting process to see because it’s now a lot better than it was,” he says.
Even though Swanson has never had an engineering job, he says he’s never regretted his path in education. He explains that he has a different way of thinking through problems than his peers, and he likes the different perspective. “I use it in problem analysis and in how I tackle problems in general.”
And while engineering isn’t the standard background of most doctors, Swanson is happy with the education he received from Iowa State. Growing up with a love for the university and then attending himself was a happy experience for him.
“I started this when I was a kid, so it’s kind of hard for me to separate Iowa State from who I am,” Swanson says. “It has made me who I am, and that’s how I live my life every day.”