The space doctors
BMJ 2023; 383 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.p2726 (Published 12 December 2023) Cite this as: BMJ 2023;383:p2726
- Mun-Keat Looi, The BMJ
Biographies
Mission control: Sushmita Ramanujam
Radiology specialty registrar at Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.
Sushmita has worked for the independent UK organisation Space Health Research as first aider in the Mission Control team for analogue missions.
Antarctic explorer: Beth Healey
Emergency medicine doctor working in Switzerland.
As research MD for the European Space Agency (ESA), Beth spent a winter at the Concordia base in Antarctica, known as “White Mars.”
Chief medical officer: Rochelle Velho
Clinical teaching fellow with experience in acute medicine, anaesthesia, and intensive care medicine.
Rochelle was chief medical officer for the Austrian Space Forum and has participated in expeditions to test space suits in extreme environments such as the Dhofar desert in Oman.
How did you get into space research?
RV: “I’ve always been interested in space. From the age of 11, my mum used to put me into a summer space camp—it was next to her PhD lab. We built rockets and competed to see whether physics translated into application.
“In my second year of medical school, I was Googling space medicine randomly at 3 am. I found the ESA website and what was the first course in aerospace medicine for medical students. I decided to apply.
“I spent a week at ESA’s base in Cologne testing novel ideas for doing CPR in space, which we presented to a bunch of flight surgeons. This course opened doors: I found mentors, colleagues, and friends to collaborate with.”
SR: “As I was nearing the end of my Foundation …
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