April 1998 space shuttle mission includes two family physicians
Forgive Alex Dunlap, D.V.M., M.D., and Dafydd "Dave" Williams, M.D., if they're gazing at the stars a little bit more than usual these days.
Dafydd "Dave" Williams, M.D. Alex Dunlap, D.V.M., M.D. Dunlap, 37, and Williams, 43, are both FPs and are both part of "STS 90," the 90th mission of NASA's space shuttle program. As as astronaut, Williams will find himself a little bit closer to those stars very soon while Dunlap, his backup, will be at Johnson Space Center in Houston with an eye on the shuttle. The mission is called "Neurolab," it's dedicated to research on the nervous system and behavior, and it will most likely blast off April 16.
During the 16-day mission, Dunlap, on leave from the Baptist Health-Plex Family Practice Residency in Memphis, Tenn., will be working long hours in Houston. He'll be helping Wil-liams and the other astronauts with more than two dozen scheduled experiments.
"The experience has been incredible," said Dunlap, an AAFP member. "Working with these experiments has been like going on 26 mini-sabbaticals. It's been incredible to work with this level of scientists on a one-to-one basis."
That work started about two years ago, when Dunlap left his residency and Williams left Toronto, where he is an emergency physician/family physician and a member of the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC). As FPs, Dunlap and Williams received "crew medical officer" training to allow them to act as physicians in space. Neurolab will also be the first-ever shuttle mission to carry a defibrillator, so the two have learned to resuscitate in space.
They also did work here and in Europe on the 26 experiments, endured centrifuge training, experienced freefall in NASA aircraft, and even did water survival training at Pensacola, Fla.
Mementos in space
The FP scheduled to blast off into space April 16 is Canadian, but he'll carry at least two AAFP mementos with him.
Dafydd "Dave" Williams, M.D., will carry an AAFP "I Deliver" button, courtesy of the University of Tennessee Department of Family Medicine, where Alex Dunlap, M.D., the other FP working on the mission, is a resident. He'll also carry an AAFP lapel pin, which he received from Academy headquarters in Kansas City, Mo.
Williams, who grew up along with the U.S. space program in the '50s and '60s but saw his own country send only satellites into space, was already familiar with the ocean. Rather than explore "outer space," Williams says, he turned to "inner space" when he started scuba diving in 1967.
Twenty-five years later, in 1992, Williams' application was accepted by the Canadian Space Agency, and he soon found himself at Houston.
"I never thought as a youth, growing up in Canada, that I'd have the chance to fly in space," Williams said. "I'd had it in the back of my mind, but never thought it was possible to have a dream like that come true."
Dunlap took a slightly different route to NASA. He received his medical degree from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Memphis in 1996, and he also holds a veterinary medicine degree from the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine in Baton Rouge. As such, he is valuable to the Neurolab mission.
"They felt it was important to have someone who knows science, and knows the experiments, communicate between the ground and the shuttle," Dunlap said. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime."
Dunlap is not the first AAFP member to be involved in a space shuttle flight. Charles Brady, M.D., of Robbins, N.C., took part in the (then) longest-ever space shuttle mission between June 20 and July 7, 1996.
By Todd Simchuk, Managing Editor
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1998 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
