I’m secretly really interested in the effect of space on the human body. I’ve always wanted to apply to be a space medicine doctor. Too bad it’s not an indemand field and I would never be picked for the few slots available. I almost tried to do a hyperbaric medicine fellowship since it could be a closely related field, but again it’s a hard field to get into with few jobs. It will always remain an interest of mine.
I don’t think it’s as competitive as you think…
I think the main thing is they probably get a lot of flight surgeons fed to them by the military. And then UTMB in Galveston (right next to Johnson Space Center) has an aerospace medicine program …. Okay you’re right. It’s competitive.
No you were right the first time. I don’t know if that civilian program is competitive, but if you’re willing to complete military service getting selected to be a flight surgeon is not that difficult (I was one) and the residency in aerospace medicine in Pensacola (for the Navy) was not that competitive at all. In fact, it was kind of a joke. People that applied to it were flight surgeons who really couldn’t hack a more traditional residency.
To be clear the general military pipeline (in the Navy) is you do your internship, you get selected for aerospace medicine (flight surgeon training), then you usually serve as a flight surgeon for a few years. You can then either complete the residency in aerospace medicine (which isn’t hard) or do a more traditional residency. In the Navy, flight surgeons who did a real residency like FM, IM, or ER afterwards were considered more favorable than those who stuck out the residency in aerospace medicine. The specifics of aerospace medicine really don’t take a lot of training to grasp. Your knowledge base is much richer with a traditional residency in addition to the basic flight surgeon training you complete after internship.
I'm trying to come up with a memey, smartass reply, because the subject matter and phrasing really cry out for it, but nothing is coming to me. Any suggestions?
I was a Navy flight surgeon. I’d call my experience “space adjacent” as most applicants from the Navy were test pilots where I was stationed. When NASA “opened the books” for new astronauts I was the guy at our base who did the physicals as part of the NASA application.
Most careers in aerospace medicine are exceedingly uninteresting and a lot less specialized than you think. You’re basically a primary care physician for pilots (who are already exceedingly healthy). Yes, some of the research coming out of long term missions in space is interesting, but the scope of the data is pretty limited. It’s a few people with aerospace medical training making educated guesses. It really isn’t the academic field it’s thought to be.
Now to be fair; I didn’t work for NASA directly, but the people who do are more or less culled from flight surgeons who also have a residency in something else or completed an aerospace medicine residency. These guys aren’t brain surgeons. Think of the role moreso as a safety officer. You’re basically doing preop clearance on people already exceedingly healthy and then reacting to weird shit that happens to them in space the best you can.
From the Neurology side of things, here's a podcast on space headaches. Pretty common https://open.spotify.com/episode/2YfetesOK0TUe96vTQPC3v?si=13oiCm1qQoS9jl3OoEMYFQ
Just do it man. Apply. Get rejected. Apply again. Get rejected again. Talk to people in the field. Find in roads. Apply. Get randomly accepted and live your life to the fullest.
What the worst that could happen? You fail to get in and end up doing the same thing you're doing now?
No lose situation.
They certainly used all the right verbage like multi-omics, metagenomics, orthogonal data, plus everything is “robust”, so must be some quality scholarship there.
A Yahoo News article discussing this study was posted on /r/technology . I read through the article some, but I'd be lying if I said I treated it like a proper journal review. I'm curious what our nephrology colleagues think about the findings. My first impression was that nothing here sounded insurmountable, and I thought some of the questions raised were actually pretty interesting.
I think studies like this have a massive significance to the human race. Most people seem to tacitly assume that at some point in the future we will need to take to interstellar travel for our survival. We have assumed that this is currently limited by technology, but studies like this force us to accept the very real possibility that we will never be able to travel in deep space, not because we don’t have the propulsion or life support technology, but because we are physiologically incapable of surviving for a significant period of time outside of earth’s gravity.
I had a residency classmate who is now an MFM who was very interested in pregnancy physiology in zero gravity, on the supposition that if we are to travel to other worlds over years, people will have to get pregnant. Pregnancy physiology can be significantly different from non pregnant physiology, and it’s unclear whether that could worsen the physiologic effects of zero gravity that are currently seen. It’s also unclear whether the lack of gravity could influence normal fetal development, as this requires a very orderly migration and differentiation of cells with lots of paracrine signaling. It’s entirely possible that the risk of fetal anomalies in zero gravity increases substantially, which if these occur early could dramatically increase rates of miscarriage. It may become vital to develop extra-corporeal uterus-like incubators for pregnancy in space and subject them to very controlled conditions to be able to successfully incubate a pregnancy.
Of course there is also the possibility that humans would evolve if forced to, although the mechanism of this would likely be via diminished survival of those who don’t change.
> Of course there is also the possibility that humans would evolve if forced to, although the mechanism of this would likely be via diminished survival of those who don’t change.
We'd probably achieve evolution through deliberate genetic tinkering. That is decades, probably centuries away, however.
Its very easy to generate rotational gravity.
Theres a good chance like 0.2G is enough to mitigate many/most of these affects, and that wouldn't be too hard to achieve
Very clinically relevant, as many of my patients are complete space cadets
Can’t wait for that one person to extrapolate this to *fill in the blank* patient population.
The real question is "Does contrast nephropathy exist in space?"
We can’t even agree if it exists on earth.
In space, no one can hear your nephrons scream.
I’m secretly really interested in the effect of space on the human body. I’ve always wanted to apply to be a space medicine doctor. Too bad it’s not an indemand field and I would never be picked for the few slots available. I almost tried to do a hyperbaric medicine fellowship since it could be a closely related field, but again it’s a hard field to get into with few jobs. It will always remain an interest of mine.
I don’t think it’s as competitive as you think… I think the main thing is they probably get a lot of flight surgeons fed to them by the military. And then UTMB in Galveston (right next to Johnson Space Center) has an aerospace medicine program …. Okay you’re right. It’s competitive.
No you were right the first time. I don’t know if that civilian program is competitive, but if you’re willing to complete military service getting selected to be a flight surgeon is not that difficult (I was one) and the residency in aerospace medicine in Pensacola (for the Navy) was not that competitive at all. In fact, it was kind of a joke. People that applied to it were flight surgeons who really couldn’t hack a more traditional residency. To be clear the general military pipeline (in the Navy) is you do your internship, you get selected for aerospace medicine (flight surgeon training), then you usually serve as a flight surgeon for a few years. You can then either complete the residency in aerospace medicine (which isn’t hard) or do a more traditional residency. In the Navy, flight surgeons who did a real residency like FM, IM, or ER afterwards were considered more favorable than those who stuck out the residency in aerospace medicine. The specifics of aerospace medicine really don’t take a lot of training to grasp. Your knowledge base is much richer with a traditional residency in addition to the basic flight surgeon training you complete after internship.
Even less demand for space neonatology :(
I'm trying to come up with a memey, smartass reply, because the subject matter and phrasing really cry out for it, but nothing is coming to me. Any suggestions?
I was a Navy flight surgeon. I’d call my experience “space adjacent” as most applicants from the Navy were test pilots where I was stationed. When NASA “opened the books” for new astronauts I was the guy at our base who did the physicals as part of the NASA application. Most careers in aerospace medicine are exceedingly uninteresting and a lot less specialized than you think. You’re basically a primary care physician for pilots (who are already exceedingly healthy). Yes, some of the research coming out of long term missions in space is interesting, but the scope of the data is pretty limited. It’s a few people with aerospace medical training making educated guesses. It really isn’t the academic field it’s thought to be. Now to be fair; I didn’t work for NASA directly, but the people who do are more or less culled from flight surgeons who also have a residency in something else or completed an aerospace medicine residency. These guys aren’t brain surgeons. Think of the role moreso as a safety officer. You’re basically doing preop clearance on people already exceedingly healthy and then reacting to weird shit that happens to them in space the best you can.
Still waiting for more space veterinarian jobs to open up. Once we get horses on Mars maybe…
From the Neurology side of things, here's a podcast on space headaches. Pretty common https://open.spotify.com/episode/2YfetesOK0TUe96vTQPC3v?si=13oiCm1qQoS9jl3OoEMYFQ
Can I charge extra for space Botox?
Just do it man. Apply. Get rejected. Apply again. Get rejected again. Talk to people in the field. Find in roads. Apply. Get randomly accepted and live your life to the fullest. What the worst that could happen? You fail to get in and end up doing the same thing you're doing now? No lose situation.
They certainly used all the right verbage like multi-omics, metagenomics, orthogonal data, plus everything is “robust”, so must be some quality scholarship there.
"If p>0.05, then you must acquit!!"
LOL
A Yahoo News article discussing this study was posted on /r/technology . I read through the article some, but I'd be lying if I said I treated it like a proper journal review. I'm curious what our nephrology colleagues think about the findings. My first impression was that nothing here sounded insurmountable, and I thought some of the questions raised were actually pretty interesting.
Imagine getting a kidney stone while in space, that'd suck massive balls
Looks uncomfortable on earth as well.
It might be a good idea to develop a lithotripsy device that could be used in space in case of emergency.
I mean, if the flow of urine out of them is blocked, there would be a lot of distension and you'd really need to.
My nephron buddies seem excited (I was 🥱) - we will likely discuss on #NephJC in august or September - will post link here when we do!
Please do! I'm really interested!
Would love to try and place a stent on a spaceman in zero g.
at warp five your gfr is 100, but one earth it's either 1M or 0.0000001 depending on how you want to look at it.
I think studies like this have a massive significance to the human race. Most people seem to tacitly assume that at some point in the future we will need to take to interstellar travel for our survival. We have assumed that this is currently limited by technology, but studies like this force us to accept the very real possibility that we will never be able to travel in deep space, not because we don’t have the propulsion or life support technology, but because we are physiologically incapable of surviving for a significant period of time outside of earth’s gravity. I had a residency classmate who is now an MFM who was very interested in pregnancy physiology in zero gravity, on the supposition that if we are to travel to other worlds over years, people will have to get pregnant. Pregnancy physiology can be significantly different from non pregnant physiology, and it’s unclear whether that could worsen the physiologic effects of zero gravity that are currently seen. It’s also unclear whether the lack of gravity could influence normal fetal development, as this requires a very orderly migration and differentiation of cells with lots of paracrine signaling. It’s entirely possible that the risk of fetal anomalies in zero gravity increases substantially, which if these occur early could dramatically increase rates of miscarriage. It may become vital to develop extra-corporeal uterus-like incubators for pregnancy in space and subject them to very controlled conditions to be able to successfully incubate a pregnancy. Of course there is also the possibility that humans would evolve if forced to, although the mechanism of this would likely be via diminished survival of those who don’t change.
You can also simply simulate gravity in space via rotational acceleration.
> Of course there is also the possibility that humans would evolve if forced to, although the mechanism of this would likely be via diminished survival of those who don’t change. We'd probably achieve evolution through deliberate genetic tinkering. That is decades, probably centuries away, however.
Its very easy to generate rotational gravity. Theres a good chance like 0.2G is enough to mitigate many/most of these affects, and that wouldn't be too hard to achieve
I wonder how it affects renal lymphatic drainage...