Biography

The elevator story... Born in York, PA; went to college at Yale. Went from New Haven to Manhattan to Philadelphia to Washington, DC, then to med school at Stanford. Now in an internship at Stanford before heading to the Mayo Clinic to finish training in Dermatology. Isolation Ward and Flawless were completed while in the womb of Mother Stanford. Tidbits for the truly interested: Wrote my first "novella" in fourth grade: filled a blue composition book cover-to-cover with a story about a wizard locked behind a magic door. Played trombone in the marching band, played a ton of Dungeons & Dragons, was a theater nerd in middle- and high school, and still managed to get a few dates. Worked as a National Park Ranger in Wyoming. Worked as an actor in New York. Lots of off-off Broadway. Lots of commercial auditions. Dressed up as a chicken for a Ragu spot (didn't get the part), rapped and break-danced for Pringles (didn't get the part), stripped down to my skivvies more times than I can count (nope, nope, nope). Did get a part in a Maalox commercial (which ran) and in a Calvin Klein commercial (which didn't run). Worked, in no particular order, as a reporter, house painter, waiter, secretary, paralegal at Miramax, commercial fisherman, researcher in medical ethics, dotcom soldier, scut-monkey for a nut who was re-finishing his yacht. Had to fend off the question "What are you going to do with your life" even more frequently than I had to strip down to my skivvies during the acting days. Received a grant from Stanford Med to write Isolation Ward. Published a bit of medical research. Since this research took a ton of time, and since it normally doesn't have a life outside of PubMed, I'll give it a little attention:

Spanogle JP, Miyanishi K, Ma T, Epstein NJ, Smith RL, Goodman SB. Comparison of VEGF-producing cells in periprosthetic osteolysis. Biomaterials. 2006 Jul;27(21):3882-7. Goodman SB, Ma T, Spanogle JP, Chiu R, Miyanishi K, Oh K, Plouhar P, Wadsworth S, Smith RL. Effects of a p38 MAP kinase inhibitor on bone ingrowth and tissue differentiation in rabbit chambers. Journal Biomedical Materials Research A. 2007 May;81(2):310-6. Epstein NJ, Warme BA, Spanogle JP, Ma T, Bragg B, Smith RL, Goodman SB. Interleukin-1 modulates periprosthetic tissue formation in an intramedullary model of particle-induced inflammation. Journal of Orthopaedic Research. 2005 May;23(3):501-10. Epstein NJ, Ma T, Spanogle JP, Smith RL, Goodman SB UHMWPE wear debris up-regulates mononuclear cell pro-inflammatory gene expression in a novel murine model of intramedullary particle disease. Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavica. 2005 Jun;76(3):412-20. McGee G, Caplan AL, Spanogle JP, Asch DA. A national study of ethics committees. American Journal of Bioethics. 2001 Fall;1(4):60-4. McGee G, Spanogle JP, Caplan AL, Penny D, Asch DA. Successes and failures of hospital ethics committees: a national survey of ethics committee chairs. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. 2002 Winter;11(1):87-93. McGee G, Spanogle JP. Healthcare ethics committees and managed care. American Journal of Managed Care. 2001 August;7(8):821-7.