Aerospace Medicine

This is an animation of an aircraft rolling with its ailerons. Source: NASA via the Wikimedia Commons

This medical specialty also addresses "medical problems encountered in human flight in the atmosphere (aviation medicine) and beyond the atmosphere (space medicine)."⁴

Aerospace medicine concerns the determination and maintenance of the health, safety, and performance of persons involved in air and space travel. Aerospace Medicine, as a broad field of endeavor, offers dynamic challenges and opportunities for physicians, nurses, physiologists, bioenvironmental engineers, industrial hygienists, environmental health practitioners, human factors specialists, psychologists, and other professionals. Those in the field are dedicated to enhancing health, promoting safety , and improving performance of individuals who work or travel in unusual environments. The environments of space and aviation provide significant challenges, such as microgravity, radiation exposure, G-forces, emergency ejection injuries, and hypoxic conditions, for those embarking in their exploration. Areas of interest range from space and atmospheric flight to undersea activities, and the environments that are studied cover a wide spectrum, extending from the “microenvironments” of space or diving suits to those of “Spaceship Earth”

Other Names

Aviation Medicine
Flight Medicine

Interesting Facts

Source: AEROMED by KSDescartin

• Dr. Sarah A. Nunneley was the first woman to be board certified in aerospace medicine.⁵
  

• Dr. Irene D. Long (1951- ) is the first woman American Aerospace Physician to become the Chief Medical Officer of NASA's Kennedy Space Center.⁶
  

• Wright State University's aerospace medicine program is the "oldest civilian aerospace medicine training program in the United States, having graduated more than 100 physicians from around the world since its inception in 1978."⁷
  

References

^{1 2 3}Zhang, Yawei (2008). Encyclopedia of Global Health. United States: SAGE. p. 27. ISBN 1412941865, 9781412941860.
⁴ "aerospace medicine." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. [Encyclopædia Britannica Online]. 03 Apr. 2009.
⁵ Cairney, William J (2002). BSCS Biology: An Ecological Approach. Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. 9th Ed. USA: Kendall Hunt. p.467. ISBN 0787275263, 9780787275266.
⁶ Biography Today. Retrieved on 2009-04-03.
⁷ Division of Aerospace Medicine. Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. Official website. Retrieved on 2009-04-03.

External Links

• Aerospace Medical Association
  
• Aerospace Medicine Homepage by Dr. Dougal Watson
  
• Aeromed-List (An email list server created by Dr. Watson connecting Aeromedical practitioners and other physicians worldwide.)
  
• Office of Aerospace Medicine at the Federal Aviation Administration
  
• International Academy of Aviation and Space Medicine