E41 Mark Campbell On Space Medicine

Dr. Mark Campbell is a board certified general surgeon, a member of the Texas Surgical Society, and a Fellow of the American College of Surgery. He received a B.S. in Pre-Medical Biology at The University of Texas at Arlington in 1976 and received his M.D. from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston in 1979. He finished his surgical residency at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Houston in 1984. He has been practicing general surgery for 23 years and is currently in private practice in Paris, Texas. He has been a member of the Space Medicine Branch and The Aerospace Medical Association since 1989. He has authored or co-authored 25 published papers concerning surgical care during space flight and surgical techniques in weightlessness. Ten of these articles were published in Aviation Space and Environmental Medicine. He also was the author for the surgical section of “Medical Guidelines for Air Travel” published by the Aerospace Medical Association. Dr. Campbell has been a private pilot since 1984 (single and multi-engine ratings) and received his Air Force Flight Surgery wings in 1994. He began performing parabolic flight research with NASA Medical Operations at the Johnson Space Center in 1991 and was a NASA Flight Surgeon at the Johnson Space Center from 1994 to 1996 where he was deployed to Star City, Russia to support the Shuttle-Mir program.

In this episode we talk to him about prophylactic surgery for astronauts, developing remote surgical capacity, and telementored ultrasound. 

Links:

1. Nonoperative treatment of suspected appendicitis in remote medical care environments: implications for future spaceflight medical care. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15110816/.

2. A review of surgical care in space. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12081072/

3. Prophylactic surgery prior to extended-duration space flight: is the benefit worth the risk? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22564516/