NASA Public Affairs Officer Amiko Kauderer talks with NASA Medical Flight Officer Steve Gilmore about the role of a flight surgeon in tracking astronaut health and coordinating crew medical experiments before, during and after spaceflight.
Flight surgeons are involved in all phases of a human spaceflight mission, including walking the crew members through the process of becoming medically cleared for flight, coordinating the medical experiments the astronauts perform aboard the station, maintaining contact with the astronauts during spaceflight to keep track of any health issues, assuring that crew members are physically prepared for strenuous spacewalks and assisting with their rehabilitation and adaptation to gravity after they return to Earth.
Gilmore became interested in becoming a flight surgeon while assigned to a rotation at Kennedy Space Center during medical school. “I had the opportunity to see a few launches, a couple of landings,” said Gilmore, “and thought it looked like a really interesting field to get into.”
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