Space medicine training programs focus for talk

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BY Laura Thompson

February 24, 2009

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/JSaary09.jpg” caption=”Joan Saary, a McMaster graduate and consultant to the Canadian Space Agency, will present tonight’s space medicine lecture. Photo courtesy of FHS. “]Training to become a specialist in health care takes years of study and lots of hard work. But imagine if you were assigned to become the crew medical officer aboard a long-duration mission to space. What specialized knowledge would be called for? Would you need to be a doctor? What skills would be required in addition to medical training?

Those are just a few of the questions audience members will be asked to consider at Isolated and Alone: Training the Medical Crew Officer for Long-Duration Missions, a free public lecture that will be presented tonight (Tuesday, Feb. 24) as part of a McMaster University seminar series on space medicine.

The lecture will be presented by Joan Saary, a McMaster graduate and consultant to the Canadian Space Agency.

“In space medicine, there are unique challenges that one might never encounter on Earth,” said Saary, who earned her Honours B.Sc. from McMaster. “To develop a training program for remote health-care providers, one has to think about the environment and the physical and engineering challenges that come with it. Take, for example, the size and weight of medical equipment and the costs involved to move that equipment in space. All of these things are non-medical, but play into the medical decisions.”

A physician, Dr. Saary is a specialist in occupational medicine and has a PhD in medical science. In 2000, she trained in aerospace medicine at NASA and a year later received a highly competitive scholarship from the Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology to attend the International Space University in Germany.
Since then, she has worked as a consultant on many Canadian Space Agency projects, most recently serving as the lead for a project to develop training and maintenance of competence program for remote health-care providers.

The lecture, presented by the Bachelor of Health Sciences Program, will be held in the Ewart Angus Centre of the McMaster Health Sciences Centre, Room HSC-1A6, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Attendees are asked to RSVP to space.medicine@learnlink.mcmaster.ca.

For additional information about the seminar series, please call 905-522-1155, ext. 34399, or email spacemed@mcmaster.ca

Additional seminar dates:

  • March 10 – Tim Broderick, MD Minimally Invasive Surgery in Space
  • April 21 – Julian Dobranowski, MD Telesonography

    May 12 – Dave Williams, MD Medical Aspects of Spacewalks (EVA)

  • June 9 – Jay C. Buckey, Jr., MD Mgmt of Medical Aspects of EVA
  • July 14 – Rich Hughson, Ph.D Cardiovascular Deconditioning With Space Flight
  • August 11 – Christian Otto, MD Remote Medicine Experiences
  • September 8 – Dave Musson, MD, Ph.D Behavior & Performance Issues in Remote
    Environments