About

I love to write, to explain, and to try and make sense of things that tend to defy logical thinking. A scholar by heart I am, first as a medical biochemist and medical researcher, and then as a teacher.

Regardless of where I'm working, I remain a serious working professional with high ambitions --- even if they got knocked over by the global financial crises of 2008, and then COVID --- but I am also a never-give-up sort of person, able to move forward with little regret. The crux of my life story is that I literally had to estrange myself from my family in order to stand even the remotest chance of making anything of myself. And that was not easy, but it is over and firmly in the past where it belongs, been-there-done-that kind of stuff, and would make for an intriguing conversation by the fireplace, if ever you wanted to hop over.

This website is here simply to host basic information about my teaching profile and does little to describe my collective experience at university, at the level of higher education research. If you need to know more about that, scroll to the back parts of my CV and you'll see it all listed there. In short, my publications are listed below, and I would love the chances to talk about them, if you're keen on asking.

1. Wilson NW. (2012). Chaos in Western Medicine: how issues of social-professional status are undermining our health. Global Journal of Health Science 4(6): 1-16. Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4777009/
   (Number of Google Scholar citations = 13 as on 7 Dec 2022)


2. Wilson NW, Couper I, De Vries E, et al. (2009). A critical review of interventions to redress the inequitable distribution of healthcare professionals to rural and remote areas. Rural And Remote Health 9: 1060. Available at https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.496326474031125
   (Number of Google Scholar citations = 643 as on 7 Dec 2022)


3. Wilson NW, Bouhuijs PAJ, Conradie HH, et al. (2008). Educational value and enjoyment of a rural clinical rotation for medical students. Rural and Remote Health 8: 999. Available at https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.468619245770182 
   (Number of Google Scholar citations = 26 as on 7 Dec 2022)


4. Smith C, Wilson NW, Louw A, et al. (2007). Illuminating the interrelated immune and endocrine adaptations after multiple exposures to short immobilization stress by in vivo blocking of IL-6. American Journal of Physiology - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology 292(4): R1439-R1447. Available at https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpregu.00602.2006 
   (Number of Google Scholar citations = 27 as on 7 Dec 2022)


5. Wilson NW. (2005). Effects of neutralising interleukin-6 on glucocorticoid-mediated adaptations to stress in rat skeletal muscle and liver. MSc Thesis, Stellenbosch University. Available at http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/50333

Over the past three years, I've been gravitating back towards a former interest I've had while studying postgraduate science: statistics and data science. My first introductions to computers happened at high school during 1990 when I was shown a Commodore 64 computer running WordPerfect 3.x DOS!

At university, I learned basic programming through a required module of Visual Basic. As science students in the BSc programme, one also learned mathematics and statistics. All in all, I utilised statistical methods that led to the publication of my master's thesis in 2007 (see above).

Over years of teaching, I eventually started picking up a more serious habit of computer programming, also due to having taught integrative STEM topics. Finally, I decided to take a course in Python programming and eventually move towards establishing myself as a data scientist. Now, in 2024, I am nearing the completion of basic data science credentials, looking for an opportunity to learn and grow within the field (including high-level statistical analysis).