Space Medical Question

Just curious how this would get handled...

I know that for minor medical emergencies in orbit that they can get
handled there and that more major might result in a quick deorbit and
landing...now the question....say we have a permanent lunar base or
mission to Mars...what then? Minor stuff I can see handling "on-site"
but what about something major like an MI or CVA (Stroke), admittedly
the personnel are well screened and in good health at launch but
accidents happen....more commonly what about a "simple" appendicitis
or say gall bladder problem....while minor on Earth due to easy
surgery usually, on the way to Mars or on the Moon, it could be
potentially life ending. Are there plans in place or considered to
provide surgical intervention and if so how are they thinking of doing
it?? OR possibly would they remove say an appendix prior to launch??

Thanks,


===[George R. Kasica]===

Village Of Jackson EMT-IV Tech #304005/PHTLS

http://www.netwrx1.com/georgek
ICQ #12862186

"George Kasica" wrote in message
news
Just curious how this would get handled...

I know that for minor medical emergencies in orbit that they can get
handled there and that more major might result in a quick deorbit and
landing...now the question....say we have a permanent lunar base or
mission to Mars...what then? Minor stuff I can see handling "on-site"
but what about something major like an MI or CVA (Stroke), admittedly
the personnel are well screened and in good health at launch but
accidents happen....more commonly what about a "simple" appendicitis
or say gall bladder problem....while minor on Earth due to easy
surgery usually, on the way to Mars or on the Moon, it could be
potentially life ending. Are there plans in place or considered to
provide surgical intervention and if so how are they thinking of doing
it?? OR possibly would they remove say an appendix prior to launch??

Thanks,

With the Moon, it's not so much of a problem as the launch from the Moon is
no more than 1G (what you and I are experiencing now). For major
operations, the person would be in trouble, especially on Mars - a qualified
surgeon would be needed for most, if not all, long-term missions.


--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

Just curious how this would get handled...

I know that for minor medical emergencies in orbit that
they can get handled there and that more major might
result in a quick deorbit and landing...now the
question....say we have a permanent lunar base or mission
to Mars...what then? Minor stuff I can see handling
"on-site" but what about something major like an MI or CVA
(Stroke), admittedly the personnel are well screened and
in good health at launch but accidents happen....

We will have a permanent Moon and Mars base one of these
days - probably quite a while from now. And those things
will happen - strokes, etc.

The early efforts will depend on selecting crews that are
not at high risk for those problems but if they do happen -
the missions will have doctors on board and could perform
non-major surgery. At the worst case they probably would
stabilize the affected person and continue with the mission.
If you are on the way to Mars and someone has a medical
emergency - you can't just turn around.

Later efforts will have the capability to deal with medical
emergencies and much later they'll have to deal with burying
people on Mars, etc.

more
commonly what about a "simple" appendicitis or say gall
bladder problem....while minor on Earth due to easy
surgery usually, on the way to Mars or on the Moon, it
could be potentially life ending. Are there plans in place
or considered to provide surgical intervention and if so
how are they thinking of doing it?? OR possibly would they
remove say an appendix prior to launch??
Thanks,

AT least for the next 20 years, the risks of an operation
here are greater than the risks of having a problem. No one
is going to have an operation to avoid the risk of having an
appendectomy on a 3 year mission, etc.

===[George R. Kasica]===

George Kasica writes:

Just curious how this would get handled...

I know that for minor medical emergencies in orbit that they can get
handled there and that more major might result in a quick deorbit and
landing...now the question....say we have a permanent lunar base or
mission to Mars...[...]
OR possibly would they remove say an appendix prior to launch??

For wintering over in antarctica, which has similar problems,
I think the procedure is:
- Send a doctor/surgeon along
- The doctor has their appendix removed before going. For everyone
else the risks of the operation exceed the risks of first getting
sick, then having the operation go badly while isolated.

An obvious alternative is to send 2 doctors. However, if the trip is
at 0 gee, then it's not clear how to operate anyway.

This seems like exactly the sort of experiment we should be doing with
the space station - take some animals and practice operating in zero G.
Once you know how hard this is, and if it's likely to work at all, then
you could make some rational plans for medical emergencies on the way
to Mars.

Lou Scheffer

In message 4072d566.704.41@news2, triples
writes
Just curious how this would get handled...
more
commonly what about a "simple" appendicitis or say gall
bladder problem....while minor on Earth due to easy
surgery usually, on the way to Mars or on the Moon, it
could be potentially life ending. Are there plans in place
or considered to provide surgical intervention and if so
how are they thinking of doing it?? OR possibly would they
remove say an appendix prior to launch??
Thanks,

AT least for the next 20 years, the risks of an operation
here are greater than the risks of having a problem. No one
is going to have an operation to avoid the risk of having an
appendectomy on a 3 year mission, etc.

===[George R. Kasica]===

I wonder. What's the probability of one of your team of four (or
whatever) getting appendicitis during the mission? And what are the
risks of surgery in the USA?
Seems to me that having no appendix would be a fairly easy addition to
the requirements for selection, given the large number of potential
applicants (cue mad rush for surgery :-)
--
Save the Hubble Space Telescope!
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

"triples" wrote:

AT least for the next 20 years, the risks of an operation
here are greater than the risks of having a problem. No one
is going to have an operation to avoid the risk of having an
appendectomy on a 3 year mission, etc.

Um, no. Labroscopic surgery to remove the appendix just barely misses
being an outpatient treatment. Three years ago when my wife had a
pain in her lower right quadrant we took her to the emergency room at
about 9AM. After verifying no ectopic, they took her for an
ultrasound and a CT scan. They found no gross problems, but her
appendix was slightly swollen and he white count was up. By 6PM she
was on the operating table, by 7.30PM the operation was done, and she
came home at noon the next day.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

In article , derekl1963
@nospamyahoo.com says...
"triples" wrote:

AT least for the next 20 years, the risks of an operation
here are greater than the risks of having a problem. No one
is going to have an operation to avoid the risk of having an
appendectomy on a 3 year mission, etc.

Um, no. Labroscopic surgery to remove the appendix just barely misses
being an outpatient treatment. Three years ago when my wife had a
pain in her lower right quadrant we took her to the emergency room at
about 9AM. After verifying no ectopic, they took her for an
ultrasound and a CT scan. They found no gross problems, but her
appendix was slightly swollen and he white count was up. By 6PM she
was on the operating table, by 7.30PM the operation was done, and she
came home at noon the next day.

Ah, but that's not necessarily the typical case. One night, a little
more than two years ago, I got what felt like severe indigestion. It
went away after about an hour, so I went to bed and thought nothing more
of it. But the next morning, it came back in spades -- and by the time
I had sat around in the emergency room a few hours and they finally got
me a CAT scan, my appendix was very nearly to the bursting point. Now,
I was on the table by 5 pm, out from under anaesthesia by about 7, and
back at home by about 9. But I was completely incapacitated for about a
week, and could only manage very limited exertions (including doing much
walking) for about a month.

I imagine it would have been a lot less traumatic to my system had my
appendix not gotten so close to bursting -- but even with a doctor in an
exploratory group, it's not impossible for a crewmember to pass off
abdominal pain as simple indigestion until his/her appendix is just as
inflamed and swollen as mine was.

I know that I would have had a hell of a time reacting to any kind of
physically demanding emergency during my convalescence. I think we have
to take into account the possibility that an in-flight appendectomy (or
possibly worse, a severe kidney stone attack) might incapacitate one of
your crew for a significant amount of time.

Doug

I'm not sure I've seen all the posts in this thread, my news server
being iffy at times, so I'm not sure if this has been brought up. But I
do recall that there was a minor emergency of this type at the multi-
national base in Antarctica a couple of years ago, when one of the small
crew wintering over at the base was a female doctor who developed a
cancerous mass in her breast just after the base was officially declared
snowed-in for the winter. Her condition was not immediately critical,
but the longer the time between the discovery of the mass and its
surgical removal, the greater the risk of the cancer spreading and
becoming inoperable. And, of course, since she was the doctor and
surgeon of the group, no one else there could perform the operation.

IIRC, they managed a "daring" flight into the base and replaced her with
another doctor after the worst of the winter had passed. But I haven't
heard any follow-up, i.e., whether the surgery was performed in time to
keep it from spreading.

Doug

In message , Doug...
writes
In article , derekl1963
says...
"triples" wrote:

AT least for the next 20 years, the risks of an operation
here are greater than the risks of having a problem. No one
is going to have an operation to avoid the risk of having an
appendectomy on a 3 year mission, etc.

Um, no. Labroscopic surgery to remove the appendix just barely misses
being an outpatient treatment. Three years ago when my wife had a
pain in her lower right quadrant we took her to the emergency room at
about 9AM. After verifying no ectopic, they took her for an
ultrasound and a CT scan. They found no gross problems, but her
appendix was slightly swollen and he white count was up. By 6PM she
was on the operating table, by 7.30PM the operation was done, and she
came home at noon the next day.

Ah, but that's not necessarily the typical case. One night, a little
more than two years ago, I got what felt like severe indigestion. It
went away after about an hour, so I went to bed and thought nothing more
of it. But the next morning, it came back in spades -- and by the time
I had sat around in the emergency room a few hours and they finally got
me a CAT scan, my appendix was very nearly to the bursting point. Now,
I was on the table by 5 pm, out from under anaesthesia by about 7, and
back at home by about 9. But I was completely incapacitated for about a
week, and could only manage very limited exertions (including doing much
walking) for about a month.

Aren't you just making the same point Derek is? Even when it's been
neglected for a while, an appendectomy is a fairly straightforward
in-and-out procedure. It's something that would probably be mandatory
for someone on a long space flight, and you would _not_ want to do it on
the way. For one thing, the doctor might be the patient, though things
wouldn't be as rough as in "Master and Commander"!
--
Save the Hubble Space Telescope!
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

"Alan Erskine" wrote in message
...
"George Kasica" wrote in message
Thanks,

With the Moon, it's not so much of a problem as the launch from the Moon
is
no more than 1G (what you and I are experiencing now). For major
operations, the person would be in trouble, especially on Mars - a
qualified
surgeon would be needed for most, if not all, long-term missions.

Why we don't have them at the South Pole during the winter, boomers don't
have them.

Fact is... there are risks. People may die.




--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge