United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine

Education

USAFSAM provides in-residence and distance learning courses graduating approximately 4000 students annually. Initial skills training is provided for enlisted and officers in the disciplines of public health and preventive medicine, Bioenvironmental Engineering, aerospace physiology, aeromedical evacuation for nurses and enlisted medical technicians, flight and operational medicine, and critical care air transport team (CCATT) treatment. Advanced and refresher courses are provided in these same disciplines as well as pre-deployment critical care refresher training for surgeons, critical care nurses, respiratory therapists, emergency room physicians, anesthesiologists, and other primary care providers. A three-year Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited clinical residency in Aerospace Medicine is provided for Physicians. And a six-month fellowship in Aerospace Medicine for International Officers is conducted each year. USAFSAM is host to the largest aeromedical library in the world - the Franzello Aeromedical Library. In 2010, 65 students from 46 countries attended courses at USAFSAM.

Consultation

USAFSAM provides consultative support to all USAF bases in the disciplines listed above fielding approximately 5000 requests and over 2.3M laboratory tests annually.

Research

USAFSAM Aeromedical Research Department conducts research in four key areas:

The New York Chapter

The United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine began operations on 19 January 1918 at Hazelhurst Field, Mineola, Long Island as the Air Service Medical Research Laboratory under the leadership of Col William H. Wilmer. The Hazelhurst Laboratory had a small decompression chamber and research was begun on human tolerance to lowered oxygen tension. The genesis for the creation of the lab was entry of the United States into World War I on 6 April 1917 and the resulting increase in use of aircraft by military forces. As a result, on 28 April 1917, an Air Service Medical, Signal Corps, US Army was organized with General Theodore C. Lyster, Medical Corps, US Army, appointed to the newly created position of Chief Surgeon, Aviation Section, Signal Corps on 6 September 1917. One of the first observations made by General Lyster was the alarming mortality rate from aircraft accidents among flying cadets at training centers in the U.S. and with the Allies in France. In the first year of flying in World War I the English and French found that 2% of aircraft accidents were due to combat, 8% were caused by mechanical problems, and 90% were due to human failure.

Interest in reversing this trend led to the establishment of an Aviation Medical Research Board consisting of 4 Army Medical Corps officers to:

The first action of the Aviation Medical Research Board was to direct construction of the Air Service Medical Research Laboratory at Hazelhurst Field on Long Island.

The term Flight Surgeon was adopted by the Hazelhurst Laboratory on 11 March 1918 to identify those physicians devoting themselves to the health and well-being of the flyers. And just 2-months later the first 3 students graduated as Flight Surgeons and were ordered to the field for duty. Capt Robert J. Hunter arrived at his station first on 8 May 1918 and is considered the first flight surgeon. Major William R. Ream is the first Flight Surgeon killed on duty in an aviation accident on 23 August 1918.

In early August 1918, General John J. Pershing identified a need for medical assistance in France. There were approximately 3,000 American flyers in France and aircraft accidents accounted for 74.6% of the fatalities among aviators, with only 24.8% due to combat and only 0.6% to disease. In response the Air Service Medical Research Laboratory deployed 34 officers and 13 enlisted men to Issoudun, France. There they found the physical and mental health of the pilots in poor condition. The team from the Research Laboratory employed lessons learned from their work in the laboratory and by October 1918 there was a marked improvement in health and morale among aircrew and a reduction in the aircraft accident rate.

After the redeployment of the Laboratory following the Armistice, most of the laboratory staff were reassigned or returned to civilian life and in January 1919 Maj Louis H. Bauer replaced Colonel Wilmer as the Director of the Laboratory under a new name, The Medical Research Laboratory and School for Flight Surgeons and at a new location at Mitchel Field, Long Island. Maj Bauer established a permanent course of instruction for flight surgeons and the first regular class of 2-months duration was begun in May 1919.

In February 1921 the War Department recognized The School for Flight Surgeons as a Special Service School giving it equal status with the Medical Research Laboratory. And on 8 November 1922, the Air Service Medical research Laboratory and School for Flight Surgeons was designated as The School of Aviation Medicine.

The first Texas Chapter

Maj Francis H. Poole succeeded Major Bauer as the Commandant of the School of Aviation Medicine in 1925. And in August 1926 the School was moved to Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas. Just 5 years later it was moved across town to Randolph Field in October 1931.

In 1934 it was recognized that there was overlap in research topics between the School of Aviation Medicine and the Physiological Research Unit, Material Division, Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. A division of focus was agreed upon between the two research units with the Material Division taking responsibility for the development of equipment, and the School focusing on personnel factors having to do with selection, classification, and maintenance of the flyer.

With the onset of war in Europe the United States began mobilizing its forces in 1940 which resulted in an expansion of personnel and funding for the School. On 20 January 1942, a Research Department was formally established by the School Commandant Brig. Gen Eugen G. Reinartz MC with Maj. Harry G. Armstrong MC as the Director. Included in this new research department were branches for physiology, psychology, psychiatry, biochemistry, biophysics, pharmacology, ophthalmology, clinical investigation, otolaryngology, pathology, statistics, physical education and dentistry. An Aeromedical Library was newly established to support this research effort. The new research building on Randolph Field was officially opened on 2 April 1943.

In January 1943, the Army Air Corps School of Air Evacuation was transferred to the School of Aviation Medicine from Bowman Field, Kentucky linking the training of flight nurses with aeromedical education and research.

After the war Colonel (Maj Gen) Harry G. Armstrong took over as Commandant of the School on 18 July 1946. He had previously established and served as Director of the Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright Field from 1935 through 1940, and then as Director of the Research Department at the School of Aviation Medicine (1941 - 1942) before serving as the Surgeon of the Air Division at the Office of Military Government for Germany in Berlin (1942 - 1946).

On 1 April 1946, the School was transferred from the Air Training Command to Air University Command and became the graduate medical department of the Air University, the educational and doctrinal center of the Air Force.

In August 1946, Colonel (Maj Gen) Armstrong formally proposed the establishment of an Aeromedical Center to provide for the teaching, research, and clinical practice of aviation medicine. On 21 June 1949 an Aeromedical Planning Board was commissioned by the Surgeon General to formulate plans for an Aeromedical Center. The findings and recommendations of the Board were released in September 1949 as the Report of the Aeromedical Planning Board on an Aeromedical Center and were the basis for the School complex constructed later at Brooks Field, San Antonio, Texas.

The Texas and Alabama Chapter

By 1950 the School had outgrown its space on Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas so portions of the education activities were temporarily placed at Gunter Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama. The headquarters for the School remained at Randolph Air Force Base along with the Research Department and the Primary and Advanced Courses in Aviation Medicine, while the Flight Nurse Course, Physiological Training Officers Course, and all enlisted courses were transferred to the 3882nd School Group, Gunter Branch-School of Aviation Medicine.

In March 1950 a Radiobiological Laboratory was established at Austin, Texas as a joint venture between USAFSAM and the University of Texas which looked at the effects of ionizing radiation on living organisms and the prevention and treatment of radiation injury. They worked closely with the Atomic Energy Commission at Oak Ridge, Tennessee and their work resulted in many advances in knowledge important to this new field of study.

In July 1952 Public Law 534 was passed by the 82nd Congress which authorized $8,000,000 for construction of facilities (The Aeromedical Center) for the School of Aviation Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas.

On 24 October 1952, the mission of the School was expanded from education and research to include consultation with the establishment of the Aeromedical Consult Service.

Another milestone was achieved on 8 February 1953 when the American Board of Preventive Medicine was authorized by the American Medical Association to establish aviation medicine as a specialty in the field of preventive medicine and to grant specialty certification in aviation medicine.

On 10 May 1957, the groundbreaking ceremony was held for the construction of the New School of Aviation Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas

Space medicine research began at the School in 1947 conducted by Dr. Hubertus Strughold who was previously the Director of the Aeromedical Research Institute in Berlin from 1935 to 1945. And Dr. Heinz Haber, an Astrophysicist. Their work matured leading to the creation of the Department of Space Medicine within the School on 9 Feb 1949. In November 1951 USAFSAM, in collaboration with the Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research in Albuquerque, New Mexico, jointly organized and sponsored an international Symposium on the Physics and Medicine of the Upper Atmosphere. The meeting was held in San Antonio Texas and the results of the symposium were published in a book entitled Physics and Medicine of the Upper Atmosphere with 21 chapters from 34 collaborating scientists.

In October 1954 USAFSAM took delivery of a sealed cabin simulator for space research. The simulator modeled the inside of a space vehicle and was built to study humans in a closed ecological system at simulated heights of 80,000 feet and above. Experiments were conducted in the simulator beginning in January 1956 leading to Airman Donald F. Farrell remaining enclosed in the simulator for 7 continuous days in February 1958. Following the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the U.S. pursued both civilian and military manned space programs with the USAF tasked with the military effort. In July 1958 the USAFSAM Department of Space Medicine was reorganized as the Division of Space Medicine with 4 Departments. Col Paul A. Campbell served as the first Chief of the Division of Space Medicine.

The USAF focused on plans for a military space station, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). The MOL was designed to be an earth-orbiting space station and would use a modified Gemini capsule attached to a cylinder-shaped laboratory. The MOL missions were planned to be up to 30 days. The MOL never launched a space mission, but the USAFSAM MOL studies of man in space for extended periods of time in preparation for MOL missions were used by NASA in the operation of Skylab. And much of the work in space food, radiation studies, space cabin atmospheres, and pressure suits were adopted by NASA during the Gemini and Apollo missions. The MOL program was canceled in 1969 to reduce defense spending. Both the military and civilian manned space programs resulted in major expansion of the research facilities and capabilities at the Brooks Aeromedical Center:

The second Texas Chapter

The first Primary Course in Aviation Medicine was held at the new campus on Brooks AFB 11 August 1959.

On 8 August 1961 the School name was changed to The School of Aerospace Medicine.

On 21 November 1963, President John F. Kennedy dedicated the new school complex at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas the day before he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. This was Kennedy's last official act as president and the location of his famous cap over the wall speech inviting the nation to embrace space exploration.

Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall--and then they had no choice but to follow them. This Nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome. Whatever the hazards, they must be guarded against. With the vital help of this Aerospace Medical Center, with the help of all those who labor in the space endeavor, with the help and support of all Americans, we will climb this wall with safety and with speed-and we shall then explore the wonders on the other side.

In 1996 a new School-house on Brooks Air Force Base was completed (building 775).

The Ohio Chapter

In 2005 the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) commission ordered the removal of the Air Force mission from Brooks City Base and the activation of the 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. The new wing combined the Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate with USAFSAM, and the 311th Performance Enhancement Directorate in a 3-Directorate wing: Human Effectiveness Directorate, School of Aerospace Medicine, and the Human Systems Integration Directorate