Parsippany native honored for work in medicine

Dr. Erin Simon Schwartz realized she wanted to pursue a career in medicine when she was a student at Brooklawn Junior High School in Parsippany.

“It was really more like a calling,” Schwartz said. “This is what I’m supposed to do.”

She is apparently doing it very well as she was recently recognized with an award from three of the most prestigious organizations in her field; Schwartz won the 2015 Women in Neuroradiology Leadership Award, which is presented jointly by the American Society of Neuroradiology’s foundation, the American College of Radiology and the American Association for Women Radiologists.

“The award is targeted for neuroradiologists who are leaders in their field and have promised to take on further leadership positions. It is really for mid-career, very accomplished women neuroradiologists,” said Carolyn Meltzer, who co-chaired the review committee and is chair of the Department of Radiology and Imaging at Emory University.

“Dr. Schwartz really just rose to the top as being someone who has served the field very well, when she takes on a project always does a fantastic job and she’s someone who could really accomplish anything she sets her mind too,” Meltzer said.

Schwartz is currently a pediatric neuroradiologist and clinical director of magnetoenchephalography at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the associate professor of radiology at The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

The now 48-year-old Schwartz grew up in Morris County, attended Parsippany Hills High School and has studied all over the country.

“The solid foundation that I got in the Parsippany school system really allowed me to be so successful, to have such great primary and secondary education,” she said.

After high school, she attended Tufts University where she earned a bachelors of science in occupational therapy. She went to medical school at the Medical College of Virginia and that’s where she realized she wanted to pursue a career in radiology.

Schwartz said she noticed as she was doing her hospital rotations that in order to find out what was actually wrong with the patients, it was necessary to go down to the radiology department, she said.

“I thought that was really interesting that as radiologist you don’t necessarily have your own patients but you take care of everybody’s patients.,” Schwartz said.

She was also fascinated by the brain and spinal cord and how truly intricate the anatomy was and how little was truly understood about it, she said.

Schwartz moved on to the University of Maryland Medical School in Baltimore where she did her radiology residency and became certified in diagnostic radiology. From there, it was on to the University of California, San Francisco for a two-year fellowship in diagnostic neuroradiology.

Schwartz has held many leadership positions and over the years has taken an interest in pediatric neuroradiology.

“When I was in San Francisco I became very interested in pediatric neuroradiology which is what I do now and learning about and studying the developing brain and doing fetal MRIs and looking at congenital brain and spines,” she said.

“I have a particular interest in children who have epilepsy and congenital brain malformations that cause that and how we can better detect those so that children can have surgery and hopefully be cured of their epilepsy,” Schwartz said.

It’s a very specialized position, looking largely at the brains and spines of children and fetuses, she said.

“[She’s] very active in the different organizations involving pediatric neuroradiologists and she already has been the president of the American Society of Spine Radiology [2007-2008] and this past April was inducted as the President of American Society of Pediatric Neuroradiology,” said Shelly Simon, Schwartz’s father.

“When she was sworn in as the president of the American Society of Spine Radiology in Palm Springs, California, the outgoing president at the time said, ‘everybody in this room is smart, if we weren’t smart we couldn’t be here, but Erin is different. She has one thing that is different from all of us’ and he said something that has always stuck with me, ‘we all speak medicine but Erin speaks English,’” Simon said. “It was a great moment for me and my wife as parents.”

Although Schwartz’s parents, Natalie and Shelly Simon, still live in Morris County, Schwartz currently lives with her husband, Darren, and their three-year-old son outside of Philadelphia.

As the Women in Neuroradiology Leadership Award recipient, Schwartz is invited to attend the 2015 ACR Radiology Leadership Institute at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., in the beginning of August.