EM RESEARCH
5 Questions Research-Bound EM Medical Students Should Ask Attendings: An Interview With Dr. James Paxton
SAEM PULSE | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2021
By Maurice Dick on behalf of the RAMS Research Committee
36 36
James H. Paxton, MD, MBA, is the director of clinical research at Detroit Receiving Hospital (DRH) and an associate professor in the department of emergency medicine at Wayne State University (WSU) School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan. He is currently chair of the SAEM Research Committee James H. Paxton and a member of the SAEM By-Laws Committee. He served as chair of the WSU Institutional Review Board from 2015 to 2020. Dr. Paxton received his Bachelor of Arts in English and biology from Case Western Reserve University, where he graduated magna cum laude in June 1998. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine in 2004 and earned his master’s degree in business administration from UC College of Business in 2005. He completed residency in emergency medicine at Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, Michigan, in 2011. Dr. Paxton has served as principal investigator for dozens of clinical trials and studies, including both federally funded and industry-funded protocols. He is a prolific author, recently editing new books on emergent vascular access and resident research. His clinical research interests are varied, including
prehospital stroke, cardiac arrest, emergent vascular access, medical errors, and medical devices. He is currently working on a multicenter prehospital study evaluating a device for the detection of large vessel occlusion stroke.
1. Why did you pursue a career in research?
During the summer of 2001, I took a job working in the basic science lab of Dr. Per-Olof Hasselgren at the University of Cincinnati (UC). While most of my friends were enjoying their down time between lectures, I was learning about ELISAs and luciferase assays. For the most part, my role consisted of the most mundane lab-related activities that one could imagine: preparing gels, pipetting samples, and so on. I didn’t know it at the time, but the most valuable lessons that I was learning that summer had nothing to do with Western blots. I became inspired by the people working alongside me in the lab. I worked with surgical residents who would show up to the lab having not slept the night before. Keep in mind that these were surgical residents before work hour restrictions were commonplace! But they remained motivated despite incomprehensible fatigue and innumerable setbacks. I didn’t understand half of the basic science behind what we were doing at that stage in my career, but something about the search for “truth in the universe” really connected with me. As a neophyte, I was in awe of these people who put aside their own needs for sleep, food, and sanity, in search of something