» Table of Contents for Elsworth Buskirk Interview

Living History - Elsworth Buskirk

 

00:00:50 You have a very impressive CV and your professional career really took off after your graduate career at the University of Minnesota. I think people are always interested in the early years in a scientist's careers and things that made them lean toward the development of a career in sciences such as physiology. Can you tell us about those early years before Minnesota?

00:07:28 Before ewe get back to the university of Minnesota. You and I have often talked about sports and you have always been very modest about your athletic prowess and contributions. In addition to hockey you have played several other sports and I think the viewing audience will be interested in some of you trials and tribulations playing a variety of sports as a youth and into college.

00:08:56 While you were at the University of Minnesota, immediately proceeding the time that you got there. Those were extremely exciting times from a scientific stand point. As you motioned you came to the University of Minnesota well into the starvation studies that were going on at that time; can you tell us a little bit more about what it was like to be there and some of the things that you were involved in related to that project?

00:11:07 You spent most of you career here doing research with human subjects, tell a little about those subjects in your experiments.

00:13:43 You also did a lot of work with Henry Taylor at the University of Minnesota including some classic studies on criteria for true determination of maximum oxygen uptake or VO₂ max. Can you tell us a little about Dr. Taylor and those studies?

00:19:02 As every exercise physiology professor and beginning exercise physiology student will attest these really are enduring concepts. Both the quantitative criteria for determining a true VO2 max and then the standardization of maximal oxygen uptake values with respect to body weight, lean body mass, and so on. When you left the University of Minnesota with your Ph.D. you next took a physiologist position with the US Army Quartermaster R and D Center [Research and Development Center in Natick, MA]. Tell us about some of the projects that you worked on there. First of all, perhaps how you ended up back in a civilian position with the army and then where the Quartermaster R and D Center was and what you were doing there?

00:27:12 While you were at Natick at the Quartermaster R and D Center you also did some studies on sleep metabolism did you remember that?

00:30:00 Subsequently, you ended up after your Natick years taking a position at NIH and there you were involved in a variety of different things. The slide that you just put up determines some of the differences in some of the studies that you had done, these are still at the Quartermaster right? 

00:31:57 When you left Natick, you took a position at NIH, can you tell us a little bit about that transition? What drew you away from Natick and into NIH? And then a little bit about some of the unique experiments you were involved in when you made the move to NIH?

00:37:11 This unique metabolic chamber facility that you directed also has important historical significance because it was the precursor to something that most physiologists are not very familiar with, which is what we commonly call the common metabolic cart. How did all that develop?

00:39:10 Tell us a little more about some of the studies using this unique chamber.

00:45:50 So from NIH, my favorite part is your transition to Penn State where you took a new academic position. Describe the nature of that transition and the position that you subsequently took a Penn State University.

00:51:27 Did the graduate program in applied physiology begin at the same time or did you first establish the laboratory?

00:52:55 The building that you were housed in when you first set up the laboratory is not the old laboratory building that we are familiar with now. Can you tell us a little bit about where you were physically housed to create this new laboratory when you first came to Penn State in 1963?

00:59:01 What about the contribution of Robert Knoll and his wife Marie Underhill-Knoll?

01:01:09 Tell us about some of the studies that took place from 1963 on, during the early phases of your career at Penn State.

01:07:39 There were some other studies that were performed at Penn State related to coronary artery disease, mitigation and a number of other areas that you were involved in; some body composition studies as well.

01:14:33 This study provided some of the early underpinnings for what became modern cardiac rehab (cardiovascular rehabilitation) programs in terms of predicting adherence and compliance of  patience in those programs and what to expect with  respect to improvements, functional capacity and risk factors and so on.

01:18:38 As you've mentioned a number of people who've influenced you over your career, is there somebody that you would consider to have been your greatest influence?

01:19:40 This video would be available through the American Physiological Society website and through other venues. What advice would you give to a young person now who is currently starting out embarking on a career in physiology?

01:24:17 Physiology has, over the past thirty years or so, followed some trends upwards and down wards. You and I have spent most of our careers as integrative physiologists there's always a danger of losing that integrative approach by becoming too reductionist and I think now, thankfully, the pendulum's swinging back toward integrating physiological system approaches into our understanding, in the discipline of physiology. What do you see as the future of physiology and the American Physiological Society? Can you gaze into your crystal ball and predict over the next 50 years what you see happening in physiology?

01:27:19 So you feel that the future's bright for aspiring young physiologist just starting off in their careers?