Greetings!
From
Dr. Bob Slaney
Hello and welcome to SpaceTourismLogistics.com!
In my time as a physician, I have enjoyed practicing medicine in many different locals and different cultural settings. I have been a Clinical Professor at two medical schools and have enjoyed teaching and helping to develop medical training programs. My current interest is applying what I have learned to help develop medical training programs for space travel and extra-terrestrial colonies.
I have been involved with setting up medical training programs for use in austere and resource limited environments. These environments are often found in locations which are resource limited due to natural or manmade disasters (e.g. war). However, as in the case of space travel and future extra-terrestrial colony planting, limited resources can be due to lack of available capacity for transporting materials, or due to limited number of space travelers/colonists which are medically trained. Projections for an initial colony on Mars call for 10,000 colonists. However, this would be increased to a goal of 34,000 once the colony infrastructure had been finished. There would be a need for 17 physicians to care for a colony of 34,000 people. Some of this patient load can be handled by Physician Assistants or Nurse Practitioners. However, there is still need for nurses, lab techs, and paramedics/EMTs. In the case of a mass casualty scenario, many more medically trained First Responders would be needed.
Building traditional “brick and mortar” schools for training medical personnel would most likely not be possible in an extra-terrestrial environment. However, having a program designed to be computer based with mentoring from a trained medical professional would be ideal for this type of environment. The “students” would apprenticed to an existing medical provider/nurse/tech until they finish the program. A continuous source of new medical personnel can thus be realized.
I hope to keep you informed as to the development of such programs and I hope to one day see many of you on our space journey.
Safe Travels,
Bob
Robert A. Slaney, MD MPH