Johnathon Shaffer

In the words of Deangelo Vickers, “Can I just say, I am so excited to be working here. A little bit about myself, I love the American Southwest, for starters.  You may call them Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah; I call them heaven.  I have a peanut allergy; it’s something I live with, and it's a part of me.  I've learned to cope with it. What else, I'm just as comfortable at a ball game as I am at the opera.”

All kidding aside, I have always maintained a sort of epistemological and philosophical curiosity for neuroscience, but my calling to neurology really began to crystallize during my MS1 year at the UQ Centre for Advanced Imaging utilizing 7T MRI to analyze reduced gray matter volumes in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.  This project prompted involvement in a number of others from SUDEP to the major clinical stroke trials at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans as well as more recent unique opportunities to work in the bourgeoning domain of sports and performance neurology and mild traumatic brain injury.  

Coming from a new and unusual medical school, I was looking for a well-established training program with a robust Neuro-ICU experience, and Maryland certainly fit the bill from both of those perspectives.  Another major draw was that my wife has family in the area, and we live comfortably in the suburbs of Mount Airy with our daughter, Mary Frances, and golden retriever, Bella.