The experience of being a doctor taught another astronaut about living in space

How have these experiences affected your time in space?

Each astronaut is different. There is no set way. What aerospace agencies look for is a type of business, because once you are in space, you have to deal with any problem.

I’m really an engineer at heart. My main goal is to love machines. I just want to get rid of the problems and then put them in a box. I think the real meaning of medicine is very important for people. You pretend you are someone else and then I choose, “What would I do if I were myself, or my brother, or my mother?” That’s what I found for medical pleasure. It brings you to the core of what you need to be as a person. It helps you to reduce the noise of culture, to reach the hearts of people. It is very useful in the atmosphere. You can really talk in a positive way and put things in perspective and be helpful. And it is always encouraging when there is a need. For employees, it is up to us to take care of each other.

You went back to being a doctor during the epidemic. Has the atmosphere changed the way you approach medicine?

I feel like I’m still in the air – I’m just a mother on earth. Those thoughts never leave me. From the sky, you can see the Earth, and it is beautiful: the blue of the sky, and the sea and the lights of the city at night are a delightful dance of life. But the most interesting thing is that when you turn your back from Earth and look the other way. And what you see is not just a story. You can imagine what happens forever. It is interesting to see how people look at this small picture of the world. It has given me a sense of humor, and it is amazing how we can cling to this place and create this whole culture and raise children and become professionals and creative. It has made me love people.

For those of you who don’t know how space and medicine interact, how would you describe some of the ways in which the research we are doing in space can help people on Earth?

We do a lot of research in the atmosphere on a ship. Because there are diseases that affect astronomers. Just living in a natural environment is good for you. There is no gravitational pull; space, radiation, isolation, and imprisonment — natural stress is bad for you. That is why we are like the perfect pigs for medical research: orthopedic health, heart health, mental health, psychology, psychology, hematology, immunology – you can name it.

The other part is medical technology. We need to make it possible for self-help professionals to help each other in remote areas. The problem is similar to the problem we have faced around the world as we provide medical care to people living in rural and rural areas, to workers in dangerous areas, our military at work, on major trips, or the elderly who are too weak to go to the hospital. As a result, the problem of delivering medication to a patient is very sophisticated. And I think the epidemic has given us all a great deal of interest in bringing the drug to the patient — using space to test how these things work.