Educational Opportunities

ESA Short Courses

The European Space Agency’s ESA Academy offers an annual Human Space Physiology Training Course. Visit this link to find out more about the ESA Academy courses: https://www.esa.int/Education/ESA_Academy/Portfolio_of_ESA_Academy_training_sessions. There are some entrance requirements (aimed at medicine/life sciences university students and a degree of affiliation with ESA is required).

Space Health ‘Meet an Expert’ Series

The archive of the ‘Meet an Expert’ series from the University of Melbourne “Human Health in the Space Environment” subject for 2022 is available on the YouTube playlist.

Dartmouth Space Medicine Elective

Welcome to Dartmouth Space Medicine. We are approaching a new era in spaceflight. Commercial spaceflight is now a reality, NASA has plans to send humans to the Moon, and SpaceX to Mars within the next decade. This means that YOU, as current medical students/residents, can be the future physicians needed to ensure the health and safety of space travelers. Learn about Space Medicine, what it entails, and how the challenges of microgravity affect human physiology. Led by Dr. Jay C Buckey, Geisel’s very own astronaut physician from the Dartmouth Space Medicine Innovations Lab, this website and elective course provides students with an introduction to Space Medicine.

Medical Student Electives

• The University of Colorado Department of Emergency Medicine Section of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine offers a number of wilderness and space-related courses and medical student electives, including Medical Student Elective IDPT 8059 – Space Medicine: Human Spaceflight Factors & Medical Risk Assessment.

UTMB ‘Principles of Aviation and Space Medicine’

The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Department of Preventive Medicine and Population Health offers an annual four-week course, typically held in July.  The goal of the course is to provide a thorough familiarization with the history of aviation, spaceflight and the specialty of aerospace medicine, human physiology in aviation and spaceflight, human factors engineering concepts related to aviation and spaceflight, the role of aerospace specialists in the selection, training, standards, medical certification and health maintenance of aviation and spaceflight personnel.  Evaluation is determined by participation in class, an oral presentation on a topic from the field of aerospace medicine.

Students who complete this course will be prepared to:
* Identify a circumstance in which human factors impose undesirable limitations on current or proposed aerospace operations
* Identify the physiologic effects of flight and spaceflight on humans
* Analyze relationships among systems that influence the health of humans in the flight and spaceflight environments
* Understand the design of air and flight space equipment, biomedical equipment, and vehicles to promote flight safety

The following core and specialty competencies are addressed: Patient Care, Medical Knowledge, Systems-Based Practice, Interpersonal & Communication Skills, and Professionalism.

Applications normally close in mid-March. For more information, visit: https://www.utmb.edu/spph/aerospace-medicine/principles-of-ASM. Some scholarships have been offered in the past.

APEX Aerospace Medicine and Surgery Fellowship
(US citizens)

**Even if you are not a US citizen, there are many fantastic resources on the APEX Academics page.

About APEX
The Arizona Program for Exploration Medicine and Surgery (APEX) started as an idea for a new aerospace training pathway to encourage procedural physicians to get involved with human space flight. Conceptualized by Drs. Eric Petersen and Anil Menon during the SpaceX Demo-2 mission, APEX has become a University of Arizona-hosted fellowship. Housed under the Department of Surgery, the inaugural fellow is slated to start in 2023.

APEX was created to address the challenges of deep space procedural and critical care. Aerospace medicine is a field historically dedicated to keeping healthy individuals optimized in abnormal environments and relies on preventive medicine techniques. The reality of commercial space flight necessitates redefining aerospace medicine to include the care of pathology in abnormal environments. This requires tackling the knowledge, technological, and training gaps in implementing procedural and critical care in deep space. APEX is designed to research and solve these inevitabilities, and to translate these findings to rural and global surgical platforms.

To accomplish this goal, APEX has partnered with the largest commercial space provider, SpaceX. This unique program will train physicians in the fundamentals of traditional aerospace medicine, provide training in austere surgical care, and pursue multidisciplinary research in surgical research topics.

Baylor College of Medicine ‘Space Medicine Pathway’

The Baylor College of Medicine Center for Space Medicine offers cutting-edge electives and a Space Medicine Pathway to undergraduate medical students at Baylor College of Medicine. All courses are taught by Baylor faculty as well as experts from other institutions and NASA. The electives are popular and receive excellent reviews from students. See information about the curriculum and lecture videos. (Even if it’s not practical for you to undertake the pathway, it is great that the set of lecture videos is available on YouTube.)

Bioastronautics@Hopkins – Johns Hopkins Human Spaceflight Lab

Bioastronautics@Hopkins is an initiative at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, that brings together Bioastronautics, Space Medicine, and Space Health Research. They currently host a seminar series, virtual networking happy hours, and journal club for the human spaceflight community.

Via this web page you can join the mailing list and join the Slack channel: https://www.jhuhsl.space/bioastronauticshopkins/.

There is also an archive of free recordings from the Johns Hopkins Group space symposia/mini-symposia: https://cgpo.jhu.edu/human-spaceflight-special-interest-group-2/.

A Brief History of Human Spaceflight’ Course

The University of Houston offers a free course, ‘A Brief History of Human Spaceflight’, on the Coursera platform.

Duke University ‘Space Medicine’ Course

Duke University offers a free Space Medicine course on the Coursera platform. Follow Dominic Tanzillo on Twitter for updates. Read more about the course and its founders here.

The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) Department of Preventive Medicine and Population Health offers an Aerospace Seminar Series (recordings of all seminars from 2019-21 are currently available online).

The archive of recordings from UTMB Aerospace Grand Rounds is also available: https://www.utmb.edu/spph/aerospace-medicine/ground-rounds.

University of Toronto Department of Medicine Grand Rounds recordings – Occupational and Aerospace Medicine: https://deptmedicine.utoronto.ca/rounds.

The International Humans in Space Summit 2022 YouTube channel.

ASBX 2021 (the Australian Space Biology x Health Summit) recordings are available on YouTube (November 2021).

10th Australian Space Forum, 25 November 2020 – view sessions on YouTube.

2nd Australian Space Biology Symposium (online), 17-20 November 2020. YouTube channel with pre-recorded presentations.

American Society for Gravitational Space Research YouTube channel. The videos include the 2021 and 2020 annual scientific meetings.

UNOOSA Space4Health webinars (14 May 2020).

United Nations/China 2nd Global Partnership Workshop on Space Exploration and Innovation, 21 – 24 November 2022. Website here (most presentations can be downloaded).

Recordings of the Project POSSUM/IIAS Space Medicine Group April/May 2020 “Astronaut Mentality Webinar Series” are available here.

A series of webinars from the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) Space Medicine and Life Sciences Project Group can be found on YouTube.

Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH)

Recordings of a large number of the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH)/Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) Red Risk School webinars for 2018-20 are available here. Alternatively, stream all the Red Risk School seminars with the Red Risk Playlist on YouTube. You can join the TRISH mailing list to stay up-to-date on the latest TRISH solicitations and happenings.

For the TRISH Space Health Primer visit this page (video also available on YouTube).

Baylor College of Medicine/TRISH: Space Health: Surviving the Final Frontier. https://youtu.be/P9e48XW-1F4 (26 Apr 2022) (01:18:59) Web page: https://www.spacehealththemovie.com/.

TRISH Orbit Rendezvous: The Translational Research Institute for Space Health hosts its monthly virtual TRISH Orbit Rendezvous, a gathering for space health researchers, students, investors, and enthusiasts. Each month, the discussion focuses on some aspect of solving the challenges of space exploration-associated human health risks. Visit this page for the dates of the next meetings, and to register and find the Zoom link. Past recordings are also listed here.

Upcoming Webinars

There is usually a lot going on in the area of space and space health, and the best way to hear about new events is to monitor social media feed, particularly on LinkedIn and on Facebook the Space Medicine & Biology Visionaries group. If you live in the Australasian region, the Bioastronautics Australia Network may also appeal.

Aviation/Aerospace Australia: A/AA has a special interest group for women in aerospace and the NextGenNetwork, and offers regular webinars and seminars. At present these are being offered free due to the pandemic. Check the website for upcoming events and for membership information.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a web page for Seminars & Webinars. There is a huge number of events listed, and at present many of them are offered free of charge.

NASA – Spaceflight for Everybody Virtual Symposium

NASA – Spaceflight for Everybody Virtual Symposium, 10 November 2021.
Spaceflight for Everybody Virtual Symposium – Day 1
Spaceflight for Everybody Virtual Symposium – Day 2
Spaceflight for Everybody Virtual Symposium – Day 3

The purpose of the symposium is to communicate the current state of NASA spaceflight health knowledge. Speakers will highlight NASA’s operational medicine and biomedical research findings that are establishing how the human body adapts to the space environment during space missions. Additionally, other health & medical topics will be discussed including the future goal for spaceflight participation for other nontraditional able-bodied people. We will also discuss the benefits of partnering with commercial providers on human health research to NASA, the commercial spaceflight sector, and to the scientific community. The symposium will be recorded for future public use and a summary of the symposium will be published. The product of the symposium is a better awareness of how NASA protects the health of all astronauts and our plans to do so in the future. The target audience is both healthcare professionals interested in space medicine and interested parties in the general public.

Web page: https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/spaceflightforeverybody.

Space – Upcoming Webinars

The Space Show offers a weekly webinar on a wide range of space-related topics, usually in the afternoon European time. The Space Show has been built upon the Space4Women initiative of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) with the objective of facilitating access to the benefits of space exploration, science and technology, STEM education, and STEM careers for women and girls around the world in alignment with Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 5.

• NSW Institute of Trauma and Injury Management – Upcoming Events: https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/networks/itim/events/upcoming-events.
• TorqAid offers a wide number of resources related to disaster and humanitarian response and also provides an online online, accredited Participatory Disaster Risk Management (PDRM) program: www.torqaid.com/online-pdrm-program

• NEW! The University of Melbourne – Specialist Certificate in Disaster and Terror Medicine https://study.unimelb.edu.au/find/courses/graduate/specialist-certificate-in-disaster-and-terror-medicine/

• Disaster Doc – Dr Mark Keim
  • http://disasterdoc.org/
  • Offers a free e-book: “Too little, too late – why you can’t rely on rescue”.
  • (also has a YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/user/TheDisasterDoc)

Yale Center on Climate Change and Health

• https://publichealth.yale.edu/climate/about/
  • Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education
  • Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change
  • Planetary Health Alliance
  • US Climate and Health Alliance

• The International Emergency Medicine Education Project (iEM) has been providing free emergency medicine educational resources for medical students since June 2018. The Emergency Medicine Core Content Course is designed according to undergraduate emergency medicine curriculum recommendations of the International Federation for Emergency Medicine and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM). All students around the world are free to register and use the resources provided in this course. For more information and to register visit: https://iem-course.org/courses/emergency-medicine-cc/.
• Other iEM project resources include:
  • iem-student.org is the main hub of the iEM Education project. Students can reach 2018 eBook chapters, blog posts, video, image, audio archives through this website.
  • Flickr image archive contains images and short videos provided by iEM contributors. All photos and short videos are free to download. These items can be used in presentations and exams.
  • YouTube video archive is where clinical videos and interviews with world-renowned experts are shared.
  • SoundCloud audio archive contains iEM 2018 eBook chapters recorded in audio so students can download and listen anytime and anywhere.
  • All iEM resources are cost and copyright free for all medical students and educators.

• The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre (BIDMC) Fellowship in Disaster Medicine is offered on an annual basis, and is open to international medical graduates.The BIDMC Fellowship in Disaster Medicine is a one year fellowship program based in Boston, USA with an option for a second subspecialty year if approved. The admissions process runs from July – December 31st each year, and accepted Fellows begin their Fellowship July 1. Included in the fellowship is an academic appointment at Harvard Medical School.It is important to note that individual Fellows are responsible for a full year of tuition fees at Harvard University (over US$100,000) and their own living and travel costs.

• The BIDMC also offers a two-year GME Climate and Human Health Fellowship. This includes completion of an MPH at Harvard. A minimum of 3-4 years emergency medicine residency is a prerequisite.

• The Living Closer Foundation physician GME Fellowship in Climate & Health Science Policy is a 12-24 month program hosted by the University of Colorado Department of Emergency Medicine.

•  Alfred Health Emergency Education offers a variety of short courses, vocational training, and courses for academic credit as well as conferences, recordings of past events, and news updates.