Joseph F. Clark, Ph.D.

I had my first book signing at the firefighter’s convention Saturday, April 25, 2009 in Indianapolis IN. This conference is huge with over 25,000 people from all over the country. The signing occurred at booth 301 with Firefighters Books (www.firebooks.com) from 11:00 to 1:30. It was great fun talking to new people on the job [...]

This Saturday I am doing my first book signing. I’m not deluding myself in thinking it will be a big event. I am attending the FDIC conference (Fire fighters and EMTs) and signing books at one of the booksellers. The conference is in the Indianapolis Convention Center Thursday to Saturday April 22-25th. I’m looking forward [...]

The federal government is spending a lot of time and effort on a federal bailout or stimulus package. Some of this stimulus package money is going to medical research. Over ten billion dollars is allotted to the national institutes of health to fund medical research projects. This money is grant funding that is being done [...]

I spent the day at a local high school recently. High school has not changed much since I was there. It was a lot of fun. I talked to anatomy physiology, chemistry and advanced science classes. I tried to give the kids an overview on what it is like to spend 9 years in college [...]

I do stroke research and research associated with neurologic emergencies. During a stroke and after some kinds of head injuries one million brain cells can die per minute. As minutes tick by more and more of the brain is irreversibly lost. Ambulance personnel know when this is happening based on their training, but medical technology [...]

There are calls on the ambulance that stick with you. “My Ambulance Education” chronicles many of the calls that stuck with me. One memory that sticks with me was not one of my calls but rather a call of a colleague. Ken was a young paramedic and my partner for the day. I arrived for [...]

Drunks are a part of the job. That is the theme of one of the chapters in “My Ambulance Education” but it is also a statement of the obvious for ambulance and emergency personnel. I would however like to mention that a majority of drunks who are given quality care by emergency service workers are [...]

So I’m looking at a shelf of books in my office and realize that most of them were published pre 2000. In the electronic age, most of my educational media is electronic. Now it seems I have more e-books and e-journals than paper anything. Less and less of what I do involves ‘hard copies’ of [...]

Did you know that not every firefighter is a paramedic? Also, not every paramedic is a firefighter. Every time you see an ambulance that ambulance may have EMTs alone or paramedics. I’m talking about Advanced Life Support versus Basic Life Support. ALS and BLS ambulances both have skilled people providing medical care at different levels [...]

There is a big difference between the medicine that occurs in the streets with ambulance personnel and the emergency medicine that is practiced in emergency departments. Despite the differences there is a closeness between those people and their respective disciplines. Both sets of people who work these jobs see humanity at its best and WORST. [...]