Dr. James M. Nicholson - Short Biography

Dr. James MacColl NicholsonJames Nicholson, M.D., Associate Professor

Dr. Nicholson grew up in the western suburbs of Philadelphia and obtained his undergraduate degree from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. Following medical school at the University of Pennsylvania he completed a family medicine residency with the Duke-Watts Program in North Carolina and then moved to Putnam, Connecticut where he spent 13 years in private practice. During his years in private practice he encountered an alternative style of term pregnancy management that involved risk assessment and the regular use of preventive labor induction. This alternative method was associated with significant improvements in both maternal and neonatal outcomes.

In 1997 he returned to the University of Pennsylvania to join the newly formed Department of Family Medicine. The initial focus of his work was to teach maternity care to family medicine residents, but within a few years he had obtained both a Master’s Degree in Clinical Epidemiology and a 5-year K-23 NIH/ NICHD grant. The focus of the grant was to study the alternative style of term pregnancy management he had learned while in Connecticut (now called "Active Management of Risk in Pregnancy at Term," or "AMOR-IPAT").

Since 2001, Dr. Nicholson has produced a variety of scholarly activities related to AMOR-IPAT. He has generated 5 large research databases, co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, assisted with the generation of dozens of research posters, and has provided grand rounds presentations to the Ob/Gyn and/or Family Medicine Departments of numerous well known institutions. He has presented his research findings in the United Stated, Norway, Germany, Italy, Canada and Australia and has been an invited keynote speaker at the Family-Centered Maternity Care Conference. His work has been mentioned in Up-To-Date and in ACOG CME programs.

In the fall of 2012, Dr. Nicholson moved to the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center with three goals in mind: 1) to assist in the training of medical students and family medicine residents – especially in the area of maternity care; 2) to actively pursue high quality research in the area of maternity care; and 3) to help with the already robust research activities of the Department of Family and Community Medicine.

Dr. Nicholson is currently living in Hershey with his wife and their three youngest children. In his spare time he coaches girls travel soccer, enjoys running, and dreams of catching large fresh-water fish. He also plays the viola, loves to chop wood, and likes to cook.

For an extended biography, click here.

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