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Who is James Norton? Teacher and Dinosaur Researcher
Finding Out Medical School Isn’t for Him After participating in this pre-doctoral fellowship year, he transferred to Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, to begin his clinical training. It was early in this third year of medical school that Jim’s career goal changed from becoming a physician who heals bodies to becoming a physiologist who studies how bodies work. He withdrew from medical school and eventually ended up back at Dartmouth studying physiology within 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 at Dartmouth, Dr. Norton returned to Maine for a postdoctoral position in the Research Department of the Maine Medical Center in Portland, focusing on cardiovascular research. 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 is a combination of teaching (still a relatively heavy load), university service, and research. The department supplies physiology instruction to osteopathic medical students training to be family practice physicians or medical specialists, and to Master’s-level students in the physician assistant and nurse anesthesia programs. Dr. Norton provides primarily the cardiovascular and respiratory physiology teaching to these three programs. His university service is currently focused on curricular and faculty development, in which he’s attempting to translate advances in the theoretical knowledge of how humans learn into practical applications within medical education. His goal is to convince his fellow faculty members that, every time they walk into a classroom or a small discussion group, they should provide something that the students cannot get from books – a novel framework for organizing information, a new perspective, or an example of “expert” thinking or problem-solving. Dinosaur ResearchHis current research projects are twofold. He continues to investigate how to improve medical education in general and physiology instruction in particular. In addition, he does research on a very interesting and unusual topic – reconstructing 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, respiratory mechanics, and computer modeling. He has given several presentations at national paleontological meetings and is currently preparing several manuscripts 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. The work will hopefully 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 reads, goes to movies, enjoys the Maine coast, watches one son play in his band and the other son pitch for his college, and makes 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 Affiliate of the American Heart Association. He has been a long-time member of the Affiliate Research Committee and served as its Chair for a number of years, until the Maine Affiliate merged with the other Northern New England states. 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 durable casts of dinosaur bones, teeth, skulls, and eggs to generate interest in biology, physiology, evolution, and ecology. On the drawing board are teaching packages that conform to the State of Maine K-12 Learning Outcomes for use by elementary school teachers around the state. They are considering an application to the NSF to fund the development of these learning modules.
Recent Publications Norton, J.M. A visual model for teaching ventilation-perfusion relationships. Adv. Physiol. Educ. 24(1):38-42, 2000. Norton, J.M. Toward consistent definitions for preload and afterload. Adv. Physiol. Educ. 25:53-61, 2001.
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