Space
Medicine Fellowship
As we travel away from low-earth orbit, astronauts deserve acute emergency medical care to be provided by expert clinicians. Space Medicine creates those expert clinicians with special training relevant to space travel.
Wilderness Medicine is defined as the provision of ‘resource-limited medicine under austere conditions.’ Space Medicine is the acme of these two conditions. Using the skills of emergency and wilderness medicine, experts in Space Medicine are developing techniques and technologies to allow diagnosis and treatment of space travelers in situ (well away from Earth). It adds to the extraordinary efforts of the last 60 years, and seeks to expand from there.
Our MGH-Baylor coalition is a driver in expanding this new acute-care-based field of Space Medicine, to be governed as a sub-specialty by the American Board of Emergency Medicine.
We are the first GME-approved Space Medicine Fellowship on the planet.
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The Massachusetts General Hospital - Baylor College of Medicine Space Medicine Fellowship is a jointly administered program leading the charge to bring terrestrial standards of care to the extraterrestrial environment.
The two-year program for Emergency Medicine residency graduates is designed to train experts in clinical care, risk management, medical system design, research, and operational considerations supporting human activities in space.
The program is administered by the Departments of Emergency Medicine at MGH and BCM, as well as the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. It is sponsored by the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, the Departments of Emergency Medicine at MGH and BCM, and commercial spaceflight partners.
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The curriculum is broken down into the following general categories and percentage of training time:
• Space Medicine Operations 50%
• Engineering Systems Design 30%
• Austere and Extreme Environment Emergency Care 7%
• Space Analogue Simulation Training 4%
• Space Crew Screening, Health Maintenance, and Reconditioning 4%
• Electives and Vacation 5%
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This curriculum aims to generate broadly capable practitioners of spaceflight medicine, with the capacity to perform preparatory, in-flight, and post-mission support. We expect that fellows graduating from this program will be capable of high-level performance in both commercial and federal spaceflight programs. To foster this, fellows engage in a wide range of rotations with our expanding number of partners.
Additionally, it is our firm belief that competent spaceflight medicine derives from a strong foundation in clinical emergency medicine. To be an outstanding space doctor, you must be an outstanding terrestrial doctor. All fellows are expected to maintain clinical competency in emergency medicine through ongoing clinical work at Massachusetts General Hospital, a level 1 trauma center. The expected clinical time requirement is 0.6 FTE.
At MGH, you will encounter a wide range of patients from all walks of life with just as diverse pathology. Faculty development opportunities are abundant and will allow you to continue developing your skills as a clinician. You will also be training the next generation of emergency medicine providers, supervising HAEMR residents and physician assistants. There are also opportunities to work with rotating EM-bound students and to teach Harvard Medical School students.
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Fellows are required to produce at least one manuscript of publishable quality to be submitted to a journal of Space Medicine as well as the completion of research rotations with NASA and private spaceflight ventures.
One of our major partners is TRISH, a consortium led by Baylor College of Medicine with MIT and Caltech which seeks to develop research targeted at solving emerging problems in human spaceflight. Fellows will collaborate with TRISH’s established research framework within cutting-edge opportunities in the field of human spaceflight research. Faculty member Gary Strangman, PhD is a founding and continuing TRISH Board member. He and Dr. Harris have a long and productive history as collaborators on projects researching human health in extreme environments.
The Department of Emergency Medicine supports each fellow with a research stipend and CME funding to help advance scholarly projects.
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• Graduation from an ACGME accredited Emergency Medicine Residency
• Eligible for a Massachusetts or Texas state medical license
• US citizenship
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• New applications will be accepted September 1 until November 1.
• Please follow the instructions on the online application form. Application packages should be emailed to both Dr N. Stuart Harris nsharris@mgh.harvard.edu and Dr Erik Antonsen eantonsen@mgb.org, as well as cc’ing spacemedicine@mgb.org.
• Interviews will be held throughout November with program faculty and commercial partners.
• Applicants can expect to hear our decision by mid-December.
We encourage interested parties to apply for state licensure early. It can take as long as 1 year to complete the process.
For additional information and/or comments, email spacemedicine@mgb.org.