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Space Medicine: The Next Frontier of Medical Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2023

Ethan Waisberg*
Affiliation:
University College Dublin School of Medicine, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
Joshua Ong
Affiliation:
Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan USA
Mouayad Masalkhi
Affiliation:
University College Dublin School of Medicine, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
Andrew G. Lee
Affiliation:
Center for Space Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas USA Department of Ophthalmology, Blanton Eye Institute, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas USA Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas USA Departments of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York USA Department of Ophthalmology, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas USA University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas USA Texas A&M College of Medicine, Bryan, Texas USA Department of Ophthalmology, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, Iowa USA
*
Correspondence: Ethan Waisberg University College Dublin School of Medicine Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland E-mail: ethan.waisberg@ucdconnect.ie

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.

Type
Article Commentary
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine

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References

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