Space Medicine: The Next Frontier of Medical Education

Ethan Waisberg, Joshua Ong, Mouayad Masalkhi, Andrew G. Lee

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Spaceflight has always been met with awe by the general public and may also have strong implications for medical training for future physicians, regardless of specialty or practice. Within the near future, the commercialization of spaceflight will lead to an unprecedented surge in travelers to space. With this increase, the understanding of space medicine and potential physiological risks of microgravity will only become more important for doctors to understand. Historically, teaching education on how the body responds to various different environments and environmental changes has been a longstanding core to medical education. Thus, education about the physiological, pathologic, and histologic changes to weightlessness over prolonged periods of time will likely provide additional insights to space medicine, as well as how medicine can be practiced here on Earth. The addition of space medicine to the medical curriculum will likely not only benefit future space medicine physicians, but also likely benefit all physicians and human health on Earth. In this manuscript, we discuss the various risks that astronauts undergo, as well as current space medicine education initiatives on Earth.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)677-679
Number of pages3
JournalPrehospital and Disaster Medicine
Volume38
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 31 2023

Keywords

  • astronaut health
  • medical education
  • space medicine
  • spaceflight

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Emergency Medicine
  • Emergency

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