Joseph F. Clark, Ph.D.

There are two types of people; Those who think transporting a bike on the front of a car is ok and those who do not. I was peripherally involved in a conversation between two people who had differing views on where to carry bikes when driving. The conversation started because local busses will take bike [...]

We are in the midst of a lost generation of graduate students. Grad students take 4-7 years to get a degree, but with 4 years of flat funding and now challenge grants’ funding being 1 in 100 there is a perception of no future in science by those students. No one wants to spend their [...]

I was attending a scientific conference recently which consisted of a series of short talks given by renowned scientists. The session was organized by a leading scientist in the field who invited the speakers and directed them to cover the key scientific subjects of the field to form a theme in the session. According to [...]

Ok, so I had my second book signing and as usual I learned a thing or two. Not a bad thing for a college professor talking about ambulance education. Never too old to learn and continue learning. The book signing was at the Firehouse Exposition in Baltimore Maryland. I was doing the signing at the [...]

The NIH needs to solicit and fund a massive effort to reduce, refine and replace the use of antibiotics. This is desperately needed because of the growing problem of drug resistance. Microbes become resistant to antibiotics via a kind of natural selection when the genes of the bacteria mutate and become resistant to our attempts [...]

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 have spent innumerable hours in meetings and do what ever I can to avoid talking and leading meetings. People know that the best way to get my opinion is to ask and people tend to listen if I am forced to participate. I tell people I am a voracious note taker and bring my [...]

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 [...]

I had a chance to spend the day in an emergency room this past week. Fortunately it was not because of an emergency for myself or loved one. Rather I was shadowing a physician to evaluate technologies used in the emergency room and to help identify areas of technological improvement. This was an interesting assignment [...]