A Space Medicine Course in an Undergraduate Curriculum of a Medical School / 医学教育

Because the environment of space is extremely harsh, manned space activities require considerable medical support. Space medicine, a field of medical science, deals with such situations. In this report, we present the outline of a space medicine course that we have established as an elective course in the School of Medicine, the University of Tsukuba, Japan. The students' responses to questionnaires indicated the popularity of the course and their interest in it. Concentrated courses are effective for teaching new cross-disciplinary areas in medical school.