Flight Surgeons:Aerospace Medicine Beckons to Many

Aerospace Medicine is a specialty that has an appeal to many medical students,offering the chance to work closely with the topline explorers of today's world,the astronauts and cosmonauts;and,indeed,the chance to fly in space themselves.There are five aerospace residency programmes in the United States.The most popular is perhaps that at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston,Texas near the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston..*
Two of the residencies are military:at Wright-Paterson Air Force Base,Ohio and the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute in Pensacola,Florida.The other civilian residencies are at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester,Minnesota and Wright State University in Dayton,Ohio.*
Flight surgeons support the health,safety and well-being of pilots,aircrews and astronauts.It is preventative and occupational medicine with an expeditionary twist.The field is competitive,but the future looks promising with the proliferation of commercial spaceflight firms and the ongoing government exploration programmes looking to scientifically colonise the Moon and beyond.