Joseph F. Clark, Ph.D.

Why do most research universities in the USA lose money on research? That is a question that comes up in numerous college, university and teaching hospital conference rooms. Deans, Department Chairs and essentially all administrators are asking that question. It is not because of the economy although the economy contributes to the very bad situation [...]

I was asked an interesting question a while ago that deserved thought before responding. Here is the question and response. It seems that all of our politicians are lawyers. There are a few medical doctors in congresses but why are there no Scientists? Good question. The answer is, “I have no idea why there are [...]

HIPAA; Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was supposed to protect patient’s privacy from being abused by insurance companies. So a lot of confidentiality issues were addressed in the act. The result has done almost anything but help patients. What is has done is made research and [...]

An interesting paradox has arisen. An email came through my website that commented on “My Ambulance Education” and referred to it as my first professional writing. That comment, while kind in its intention, gave me pause for thought. I actually do consider myself a professional writer and did so before this. My job as a [...]

I intentionally avoid this discussion of how or when I knew that being a scientist was right for me. The reason is because the answer, while truthful and kind of humorous, is not the stuff of learned scientific careers. In fact some might call it somewhat nefarious. I was always interested in science, medicine biology [...]

There are people who proclaim themselves as experts. But how does one become a perceived an expert? Having a lot of information on a subject does not make an expert. A text book has a lot of knowledge but that text book will not answer a question without someone looking in it and it needs [...]

When I worked on the ambulance I was doing that to ‘help people’ and my goal in my career over 20 years later is still to ‘help people.’ On the ambulance and when I worked in the Emergency room I was helping people one person at a time. That was rewarding, frustrating and hard work, [...]

The National Institutes of Health fund about 40,000 grants to do medical research. Of those funded projects only 14 have to do with medical research in the pre-hospital setting. This is just sad. Over 50% of all medical emergencies that come to hospitals arrive via the ambulance. Paramedics, firefighters, EMTs, Police and a host of [...]

I think President Obama needs to present a state of the sciences in address; like the state of the union. Yes, of course, I’m biased in this subject, but times are desperate. I work in a university hospital and train physicians and scientists at the cutting edge of technology. What we do is discover new [...]

I went to college for nine years to obtain a bachelors, masters and Ph.D. I am very proud of those accomplishments and completely embrace the moniker geek. I love doing cutting edge research and teaching the next generation of ‘geeks.’ The problem is that with that education I did not learn how to market or [...]