Dr. Elin received his M.D. degree in 1966 and Ph.D. with a major in biochemistry and a minor in pathology in 1969. During that time Dr. Elin completed residency training in anatomic pathology. After a straight medicine internship at the University of California Hospital at San Diego. Dr. Elin went to the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Elin spent three years in the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Disease as a research associate and completed a clinical pathology residency. In 1975 Dr. Elin became the Chief of the Clinical Pathology Department and in 1977 the Chief of the Clinical Chemistry Service within that department; positions that Dr. Elin held until 1997. Dr. Elin moved to the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Louisville in 1997.