Alumni Feature - Logan Buck

Meet Logan Buck. Born in Texarkana and raised in Hooks, TX., he’s a graduate of Hooks High School who completed his bachelor’s degree at A&M-Texarkana in December of 2023 and is currently in medical school at The University of Texas Health Science Center in Tyler, TX.

When he was in high school, Logan thought he would be going away to attend college. But during a visit to the A&M-Texarkana Campus he noticed how welcome he felt, and how people really seemed to care about him and his future. After visiting with the biology faculty, he also realized that A&M-Texarkana would have the resources he would need to achieve his goal of ultimately attending medical school.

Like many who enter the medical field, Logan’s decision was based in part by having a family member who struggled with serious health problems. His mother went through significant health issues for years before one doctor uncovered what was causing them and helped get her life back to normal. “I’ve seen first-hand what good care can do for people,” Buck said, “and I want to do that for others.”

Buck was a part of a program called the Early Assurance Pathway that can assist A&M-Texarkana students gain acceptance into the medical school at UT-Tyler. The program, open to A&M-Texarkana students with at least 60 credit hours completed, is designed to reserve one of 40 seats in each class at the medical school for an A&M-Texarkana graduate, provided they meet admissions standards and are selected by the medical school. The program helps provide valuable MCAT preparation and other resources to students in the pathway. Under the Memorandum of Understanding between the two institutions, as many as three A&M-Texarkana students can participate in the EAP program each year.

While in the program the students must participate in professional development, enhance their standardized testing skills, practice volunteerism, gain clinical exposure, and other requirements designed to prepare them for medical school and a career as a physician.

Logan says his favorite things about the university were the university’s small, close-knit feel and the access to professors granted by the university’s small class sizes. “You get to know and be mentored by your professors at A&M-Texarkana in a way that just can’t be done when there are 200 people in a class,” he said.

Logan’s current goals involve graduating from medical school and eventually moving into a career in either cariology or radiology.