By Christopher Sleight BBC Wales news website

Rothera Base is marooned during the winter months Enlarge Image

The 29-year-old is leaving her Cardiff Bay flat and hospital doctor job for somewhere a little more remote and colder: the Antarctic.

Dr Bowen says she was hunting for "something different to do" after finishing her surgical exams when she spotted the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) job advertisement

"I didn't really think I'd get much of a look in - but then I got an interview," she said.

Isolated

A few weeks later she was told she had landed the job as the BAS's Rothera Research Station GP on Adelaide Island.

For 18 months she will be hundreds of miles from medical backup and virtually marooned for much of that by some of the most hostile conditions on the planet.

But the doctor says she is not daunted by the prospect.

Lowri Bowen qualified as a doctor in Cardiff in 2000

"I think working in the bush in Australia gave a taste of working on my own when in an isolated set up.

"It's a big responsibility but the chance of something [serious] happening is quite small. But I guess if something does go wrong it will go wrong in a big way."

Flying a patient off the island during the winter months - an emergency evacuation known as "medi-vac" - is virtually impossible, says Rothera veteran Dougal Ranford, who spent 18 months as a field assistant at the base.

"The snow builds up on the runway during the winter - and the BAS keeps the planes in Canada - so it's pretty desperate," he explained.

But Dr Bowen, who qualified in 2000, will have the benefit of a telephone and web link with BAS surgeons at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth.

Hopefully I'll be able to keep up to date with the rugby. It's typical that they pick up just as I'm going off Dr Lowri Bowen

She says: "If they needed to talk you through a particular procedure, there is a video camera with internet link."

The only doctor for the 21 people on the base during the Antarctic winter from March to September, Dr Bowen will have to cope with every type of medical problem - from a cracked tooth to a major emergency.

"Hopefully the worst I will see will be being a glorified GP. I do know that about a third of my time will be taken up with dentistry - I've just had a three-day course in dentistry.

"I used to live with dentists when I was a student so I have taken great delight in telling them that what took them five years I did in three days."

And dentistry is not the only new technique Dr Bowen has been taught - she has also learnt how to make x-rays and analyse blood samples.

"There is no lab - it's you," she says.

Dr Bowen, who was working at the Royal Gwent Hospital until February 2005, flies to the Falkland Islands on an RAF aircraft on 3 November.

Base staff are expected to do a variety of jobs

From there she will be transferred to Rothera on a 54-seater Dash-7 plane.

All base staff are required to do a variety of jobs, and among Dr Bowen's are deputy post mistress and being in charge of recycling.

She is also hoping to learn how to snow board during her stay and dabble in ice climbing and Scuba diving.

And if there is still time to fill in the dark winter months - the sun does not rise for six weeks of the season - she is planning to learn Spanish and take plenty of pictures on her three cameras.

But will she miss Wales?