 |
Undergraduate
 What
is Physiology?
Careers
Brochure
Questions
Physiologists Ask
Meet
a Physiologist
Explore
Physiology
Career
Decisions
Awards
Available
Minority
Resources
Educators
& Outreach
Related
Links
|
|
Who is James Norton?
Teacher and Dinosaur Researcher
James M. Norton was born in Bangor, Maine, right after the end of World
War II, making him one of the advance waves of the “baby boom”
generation. He is the second of five children. His family relocated to
South Portland, ME, while he was still an infant, and he has maintained
his residence there ever since, except for the years spent in college
and graduate school.
Jim has always been interested in living things and spent many hours as
a child exploring the woods, streams, and ponds near his home and
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.
Finding Out Medical School Isn’t for Him
Although Jim knew he wanted to become a physician, and would
therefore have to acquire a solid background in the life sciences, he
also loved the study of languages. He was able to combine the two by
choosing a college (the 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 minimum courses necessary to qualify
for medical school admission. He’s 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 as a Professor of
Physiology.
After graduating from 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 elected to spend a year in the Physiology Department
doing research in the area of the control of coronary vascular muscle
tone.
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 Job
After 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 has been the Chair
of the Department of Physiology since 1986. 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 cell,
nerve, muscle, 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.
Scholarship
Some of Dr. Norton’s recent research focused 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 combined 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 has 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.
His current scholarship focuses on how to improve
medical education in general and physiology instruction in particular,
by including more direct medical applications of physiological
principles into his classes. For example, along with fellow faculty in
the Departments of Anatomy, Biochemistry, and Family Medicine at the UNECOM, he developed integrated clinical cases that incorporate
common principles being taught in the three courses. The introduction
of these cases at the beginning of each curriculum block, as well as the
concluding case discussion at the end of each block, are team-taught
sessions with faculty from all courses participating.
Outside of Work
When he’s not teaching or doing research, Dr. Norton reads, goes to
movies, enjoys the Maine coast, making furniture, and crafting ship
models. His recent modeling projects include 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,” and a reconstruction of an Irish ocean-going curragh supposedly used by Irish monks to travel to North American in
the sixth century. He is currently working on a model of Leonardo Da
Vinci’s flying machine. 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.
Advice to Undergraduate Students
If you are an undergraduate student considering a career in
physiology or another life science, take advantage of the opportunity
that college provides to study other subjects that interest you. Your
graduate program will provide you with the knowledge that you need but
it will be very focused. Your undergraduate study allows you to
accumulate the required prerequisite courses to assure successful
application into a graduate program, but it still provides you an
opportunity to study music, art, history, and language – subjects that
will enrich your life for years to come.
Recent Publications
Norton, J.M. A comparison of methods for identifying troublesome
examination questions.
Adv.
Physiol. Educ. 16(1):S55-S60, 1996.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.
|
|
