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Space Medicine: Emergency Physicians Voyage Into the Final Frontier

By Sophia Görgens, MD | on May 2, 2023 | 2 Comments
Features Resident Voice
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2024 APEX Award winning article

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Explore This Issue
ACEP Now: Vol 42 – No 05 – May 2023

An astronaut steps onto the rust-red surface of Mars, above her the expanse of the galaxy, bright against the darkness of space. Her teammates are setting up basecamp—after a seven-month journey they intend to stay for at least the next year. She wants to help, but her right upper quadrant pain from the past two days is worsening, and she knows she’s been running a low-grade fever. Suddenly, the pain intensifies, and she clutches her abdomen. Her teammates rush over and bring her back onboard their ship. An emergency-physician astronaut rapidly uses a hand-held ultrasound (US) machine to diagnose her with acute cholecystitis. Earth is seven months away, but the physician has trained for this. She takes the astronaut to the medical bay, and with the assistance of her teammates, runs labs, starts intravenous fluids and medications, and prepares to place an US-guided drain.

The Future of Space Medicine

Dr. Lehnhardt

Aviation medicine—the predecessor of today’s space medicine—has been around since the early 1900s, when aviation first took flight. Only a few decades later, President John F. Kennedy launched the nation’s space dreams. Though the technological difficulties seemed insurmountable to some, by 1969, the United States had achieved that dream of going to the Moon and returning safely to Earth. By 1998, the first element of the International Space Station was launched, and today, space tourism is a commercial enterprise, academic and commercial endeavors are eyeing low Earth orbit, and a return to the Moon and voyaging beyond to Mars are the next steps in space travel.

But how does the human body cope with the extreme environments of space? Our understanding of the effects of space on human anatomy and physiology is ever-expanding, and space medicine has grown to fill that niche. As Kris Lehnhardt, MD, the element scientist for exploration medical capability at the NASA Johnson Space Center and an emergency physician at Baylor College of Medicine, both in Houston, notes, “Some physiologic changes that occur in space are good—for example, less muscle mass in the legs is helpful in zero-gravity. The problems often occur when you return home—or to any celestial body. If you haven’t used effective countermeasures to maintain your body in an Earth-like state, the stresses of gravity become problematic. One of our jobs is to figure out what those changes are, especially in the long term when you’re thinking about three-year missions to Mars, and to come up with appropriate countermeasures.”

Pages: 1 2 3 4 | Single Page

Topics: aerospace medicineAirplaneaviation medicinespace medicine

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2 Responses to “Space Medicine: Emergency Physicians Voyage Into the Final Frontier”

  1. July 14, 2023

    Aerospace medicine academicians. Reply

    10 minutes lost in eternity reading this shallow writing project by an ER resident. Not a single source from experienced space medicine physicians, nor a contrast from medical associations producing knowledge about human space exploration, not even a hint of research about basic space physiology. The delusional scenario of an astronaut with cholecystitis should have been enough warning. Expect major backlashes from accredited organizations, educational programs and think-tanks once they endure reading this dystopian review.

  2. August 28, 2023

    Terence Alost, MD MBA FAAEM Reply

    Ok, I read the reply above, I have been teaching science since the 80s and Emergency Medicine since the 90s (and I grew up on the Space Coast during the 70s and worked testing parts of the Shuttle in the 80s.) So, is the article extremely rigorous in its scientific value or rigor? No, but so what! It is sort of, science fiction or just an article, but SO WHAT! If the article sparks the interest of a young physician or physician-to-be to work in that field, then that’s a fantastic thing. Those of us older than 45, 50, 55, 60 etc. “know” that we are smarter than our childish 28 t0 32-year-old colleagues! I’m old< I guess. (Unless you're dumb or they are exceptionally smart, that is true.) It, however, is NOT ABOUT WHO IS SMARTER! It is about who is more experienced. It is not important to brag about experience. It is a DUTY to pass that experience on to the next generation. And it will be their exact job 20 to 30 years later.

    So, to the author of the last criticism, I get it. Scientifically speaking, perhaps the article is goofy. But if that article sparks the interest of a 15-year-old somewhere, maybe they will do something incredible 30-40 years from now. I don't know your age. I am quite healthy (currently) and might still be alive at age 100+ or I could be gone. However, all of us need to work to make medicine and the world better for the times after we are gone.

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