NAME: DR Peter Hodkinson, PHd
ROLE: Aviation and Space Medicine Consultant & NGAM senior Mentor
FAVOURITE AIRCRAFT: SR-71 Blackbird
TWITTER BIO: @spaceman_pete
What is your role in aerospace medicine?
Clinical Senior Lecturer and Head of Aerospace Medicine (Clinical and Education) at King’s College London. I am also on the European Space Agency Medical Board, Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace Medicine Group committee, the Royal College of Physicians Specialty Advisory Committee in Aviation and Space Medicine and the UK Space Life and Biomedical Sciences committee. I am a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association and NGAM’s senior mentor.
How Did You First Get Interested in This Field?
I loved airplanes and flying and dreamed of travelling to space as a child. As I grew up I was drawn to medicine and the physiology of how humans survive and perform in extreme environments. Aviation and space medicine was a natural combination of my childhood dreams with a real job.
HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED?
I went to the 1999 Future of Space Biomedicine research conference organised by Kevin Fong in London and got chatting with Simon Evetts about how I had seen a course at KCL on Human and Applied physiology, which included human physiology (and personal experience!) in extreme environments. As luck would have it Simon was a PhD student with Professor John Ernsting who arranged for me to visit to talk about the course and look around the labs. We got to ride on a human carrying centrifuge, be decompressed to 25,000 ft in an altitude chamber, went diving with the Royal Navy and I was hooked. I applied to become an RAF medical cadet and went on to complete Specialty Registrar training in Aviation and Space Medicine at the RAF Centre of Aviation Medicine.
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE TO TEN YEARS?
Enjoying watching humans walking on the surface of the Moon again!
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO THOSE WHO WANT TO FOLLOW IN YOUR FOOTSTEPS?
Go for it! It is challenging and opportunities are continually evolving but they are growing and with it access is opening up more. So, I suggest to be persistent, take chances as they present themselves and be prepared to work hard to generate your own opportunities as well. Get out there and speak to people already in the field about what they do, how they got there, if there are any projects you could get involved with and any advice they would give you. Share your excitement and enthusiasm for the field; it is shared by many of us of all ages! Mentoring and networking have been very important to help me get to here and I would encourage everyone to be active in this regard for themselves but also to support those coming up behind them.
What IS ONE OF YOUR FAVOURITE MOMENTS IN AEROSPACE MEDICINE SO FAR?
So many! The practical elements are always a highlight for me e.g. doing teaching, training or research in the altitude chamber, centrifuge, parachuting or parabolic flight and anytime I’m flying is a treasured privilege. One of the technical highlights though was during my time at the European Astronaut Centre when I got to sit in the control room with the Biomedical Engineer while the European Space Agency Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti helped to prepare her Astronaut colleagues in orbit onboard the International Space Station (ISS) for a spacewalk (Extra-Vehicular Activity, EVA), which is one of the particularly challenging and interesting activities to support within our field. It is also a small field so a favourite time is also the family-like feel I get now when I go to the international conferences like AsMA and get to catch up with old friends from around the world and meet new people who are also excited and enthusiastic about this fascinating field of medicine.