[1] He wrote and spoke on the relationships between neurology and the rest of medicine and linked the nervous system with cardiac function.

He delivered the graduation address, and was later elected to the Cleveland Heights High School Hall of Fame.

[citation needed] Samuels also received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1993.

[citation needed] During medical school, Samuels was influenced by a number of mentors, including Benjamin Felson, Richard Vilter, Edward Gall, Roger Crafts, Evelyn Hess, Gustav Eckstein, and Charles Aring, the latter of whom drew him into the field of neurology.

[citation needed] He spent a period of time in hepatology and immunology research with the late Dame Professor Sheila Sherlock at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

The work resulted in his first scientific publication in Gut showing that a serum factor present in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis was responsible for the autoimmune nature of the disease.

Since its launch, the relatively new department has grown to include over 250 academic appointments, including 20 full professors, six with endowed chairs, at the Harvard Medical School; one of the largest programs in basic, translational, and clinical research with over $40,000,000 in annual research support; 15 divisions; an inpatient neurology service; an epilepsy monitoring unit; a 20-bed neurological-neurosurgical intensive care unit; and ambulatory programs in all major areas of neurological medicine.

He articulated a unifying hypothesis that explains the mechanisms whereby the nervous system can produce cardiac arrhythmias and myocardial necrosis in a number of clinical contexts including subarachnoid hemorrhage, intracerebral hemorrhage, cerebral infarction, brain tumor, epilepsy and psychological stress.

[5] Samuels has spoken on his research at the Cleveland Clinic Heart-Brain Summit (2006)[6] and the International Academy of Cardiology's World Congress on Heart Disease, where he delivered the H. Jeremy C. Swan Memorial Lecture in 2010.

[citation needed] In 2007, he served as the Robert B. Aird Visiting professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco.