Joseph F. Clark, Ph.D.

A student came to my office to enquire about becoming a graduate student in my lab. She was extremely bright, energetic and had done some homework about my work as evidenced by the insightful questions she was asking. I put a lot of weight on the questions and dialogue that occurs when I interview, and [...]

There are two types (maybe three) of difficult classes: Classes with a lot of material making the class difficulty due to the volume, Classes with difficult concepts and the third is when these two factors are combined. Anatomy is an example of a difficult class because of the sheer volume of material that needs to [...]

There is an old saying that those who can do; those who can’t teach. While I’m not too sure about that, there is an interesting paradigm in higher education. That is the highest level scientists in the USA tend to be successful scientists and researchers by spending time doing research, writing grants and papers. The [...]

Peaks and Valleys. The whole lifestyle of college professors and most academics is a series of peaks and valleys. We are exuberant with successes like funded grants and exciting research data. Conversely we live with constant rejection from failed experiments, rejected papers and grant applications. So the peaks really need to outweigh the depths reached [...]

Can someone please tell me what type of job is there that can never be outsourced, but is present in every country in the world? What is the profession where the whole world is united in one language and one goal? When can you be paid to travel to some of the most beautiful places [...]

There are few acute medical conditions that can quickly cause a young healthy adult to die. A non exhaustive list of these are: ruptured appendix, pulmonary embolism, deep venous thrombolism, ectopic pregnancy, heat stroke, stroke, heart attack (sudden cardiac arrest), and meningitis. With this blog being about neurologic emergencies I posit as significant that 3 [...]

Ever wonder what esoteric erudite academics do to challenge ourselves? No, I guess that is not a burning question on society’s psyche. But, I’ll enlighten you anyway because it is entertaining in a juvenile and jovial way. I was with a group of junior researchers in Oxford England and we were comparing our academic conquests [...]

I LOVE these discussions; they can be fun, engaging and animated. We use terms like; cutting edge, out of the box, paradigm shifting and groundbreaking.

With the eclectic mix of writing tasks, I have ended up with different writing strategies to get the job done.

I say that I am a geek amongst geeks with pride.