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Who is James Norton? Teacher and Dinosaur Researcher
Jim has always been interested in living things and spent many hours as a child exploring the woods, streams, and ponds near his home. He adopted a variety of animals as pets – birds with broken wings, abandoned baby squirrels, frogs, turtles, and even snakes. A favorite hobby of his as a child was drawing animals, and many of his early drawings of birds hang in his office today. He also made a number of carvings and woodcuts of birds, deer, and whales. Figuring Out a CareerEven though Jim knew he wanted to become a doctor, which meant he would have to take a lot of courses in the life sciences, he also loved the study of languages. He was able to combine the two by choosing a college (College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA) where he could major in Classical Languages and Philosophy but also complete a pre-medical minor that gave him the courses he needed to apply for medical school admission. He has never regretted this decision, which has given him the combined perspectives of liberal arts, humanities, and science that have brought him to his current position. After graduating from College of the Holy Cross in 1967, Jim enrolled in Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, NH, where he had his first introduction to physiology. The subject so fascinated him that, after his second year of medical school, he decided to spend a year in the Physiology Department doing research in the area of the control of muscle tone in the blood vessels leading to and from the heart. After doing this research for a year, he transferred to Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, to begin his clinical training. During his third year of medical school, Jim changed his career goal from being a physician who heals bodies to being a scientist who studies how bodies work. He withdrew from medical school and eventually returned to Dartmouth where he enrolled in the graduate program in the medical school’s Department of Physiology. He received his Ph.D. in physiology in 1979. Finding a JobAfter finishing his graduate work, Dr. Norton returned to Maine for additional research training (called a postdoctoral position) in the Research Department of the Maine Medical Center in Portland. There he focused on research involving the heart and blood vessels (the cardiovascular system). It was while he was there that he first learned of the University of New England’s College of Osteopathic Medicine (UNECOM), which had been founded in 1978 in nearby Biddeford. He visited the campus, met with the faculty and the students, and immediately applied for a position there, not really knowing whether he had the skills or aptitude to take on the relatively heavy teaching load. He was offered a position, and he began at UNECOM as an Assistant Professor in August of 1980. The rest is history, as they say. At UNECOM, Dr. Norton is now a tenured Professor and was the Chair of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology from 1986-2002. His work combines teaching (still a lot of classes), service to the university, and research. The department is responsible for teaching physiology to osteopathic medical students training to be family practice physicians or specialists, and to Master’s-level students in the physician assistant and nurse anesthesia programs. Dr. Norton mainly teaches cardiovascular and respiratory physiology to students in these three programs. His service to the university is currently focused on course and faculty development, where he is trying to take advances made in the theoretical knowledge of how humans learn and turn them into practical applications in medical education. His goal is to convince his fellow teachers that, every time they walk into a classroom or a small discussion group, they should provide something that the students cannot get from books, such as a new way of organizing information, a new perspective, or an example of “expert” thinking or problem solving. Studying DinosaursDr. Norton has two main areas of research. The first involved studying how to improve medical education in general and physiology instruction in particular. His second research project is on a very interesting and unusual topic – dinosaurs. He is trying to reconstruct the breathing apparatus of a particular class of dinosaurs called theropods (think Velociraptor from Jurassic Park!). This combines a childhood interest of his (what kid isn’t interested in dinosaurs!) with comparative physiology (how different types of animals deal the same or differently with the same problems, like breathing, moving blood around the body and handling food), respiratory mechanics, and computer modeling. Dr. Norton has given several talks about this research at national paleontological meetings and is currently writing several papers for possible publication in this area. The work involves visiting museums, photographing and measuring dinosaur ribs and vertebrae, and creating a working virtual model of the dinosaur backbone and rib cage. He hopes that this research will shed some light on whether these very interesting creatures were truly warm-blooded, with activity levels and behaviors similar to those of modern predators, such as wolves or lions. Outside of WorkWhen he’s not teaching or doing research, Dr. Norton has fun reading, going to movies, enjoying the Maine coast, watching one son play in his band and the other son pitch for his college, and making ship models. His current modeling project is a 1/24 scale reconstruction of the launch of the H.M.S. Bounty, complete with figures of Lt. Bligh and the 18 other loyal crew members who were set adrift with him, built entirely from “scratch.” Other recent models include a reconstruction of an Irish ocean-going curragh (a leather-covered boat), which he had originally built for his late father but which now sits in his office. His next project will be a model of the “James Caird,” the small boat used by Ernest Shackleton and five others to cross 800 miles of treacherous South Atlantic seas to reach civilization at South Georgia Island, which will again have miniature crewmembers. Dr. Norton is active as a volunteer as well. Most of his volunteer work has revolved around the local chapter of the American Heart Association. While his sons were attending the local public schools, he was always involved with parent-teacher groups, building committees, and sports booster clubs. He is also the assistant curator of the Dinosaur Discovery Center, begun by his brother who shares his interest in dinosaurs. They visit elementary school classrooms and bring with them casts of dinosaur bones, teeth, skulls, and eggs to generate interest in biology, physiology, evolution, and ecology. They are hoping to develop teaching packages on dinosaurs that could be used by elementary school teachers around the state. Advice to High School StudentsPhysiology is a very broad, inclusive discipline that includes many different areas of study, from molecules to cells to organisms to the environment. Anyone with an interest in one of the life sciences could become a physiologist. It is a career that allows the greatest flexibility to study what interests you.
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