MJM MedTalks
From the Operating Room to Outer Space: A Discussion with Dr. Matthew Turnock on Anesthesiology and Aerospace Medicine

Introduction

00:00:05 Noha Benharira (NB): Hello and welcome to a new installment of the McGill Journal of Medicine podcast series, MJM Med Talks, where we speak with members of the medical community at McGill and beyond. I'm Noha Benharira, a medical student and podcast associate here at the McGill Journal of Medicine and today I'm very excited to be speaking with Dr. Matthew Turnock.

Dr. Turnock is a staff anesthesiologist at Royal Columbian Hospital and Eagle Ridge Hospital in British Columbia, where he's also involved in resident education and research as a clinical assistant professor. He completed an undergraduate degree in computational neuroscience and a Master of Science in eHealth at McMaster University, where he conducted research in the Canadian Arctic and Mars analogue sites.

He pursued his MD and completed an anesthesiology residency at the University of Toronto before doing a fellowship in pre-hospital medicine and aeromedical transport. His recent work has explored a particularly fascinating intersection, anesthesiology, aerospace medicine, and the question of how anesthesia behaves in microgravity. He has also had a long-standing interest in space medicine and medicine in extreme environments.

Today we'll be discussing various aspects of his career in anesthesiology, space medicine, and medicine in extreme environments. So, Dr. Matthew Turnock, welcome to the podcast and thank you so much for accepting our invitation.

00:01:24 Dr. Matthew Turnock (MT): Hi, thank you so much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Interview

00:01:27 NB: So we can start talking a little bit about your career. You built a career that includes clinical anesthesiology, trauma, leadership, medical education, and now aerospace related research. So how did your interest in medicine kind of first develop and what ultimately drew you to anesthesiology?

00:01:44 MT: Yeah, that's a really good question. I didn't go into university knowing that I wanted to do medicine like a lot of my colleagues do. I came to medicine quite late, actually, probably the end of third year of my undergraduate studies.

I think what really got me into medicine was, first of all, I was trying to figure out a career path that would get me a job. Around that time, we were entering a recession, so jobs were getting a bit tight. But mostly, I actually came across a talk by Canadian astronaut Dave Williams, who came to McMaster and gave a one hour talk. And I didn't know much about the astronaut corps at that time in Canada.

Obviously, I was a big sci-fi nerd growing up with Star Wars and Star Trek and I was doing computational neuroscience. I was interested in technology. But my impression of astronauts were that they were all fighter pilots or engineers. So when he came and gave this talk, I was really surprised to hear that he was actually an emergency medicine physician. And we shared a lot of common elements, I guess, growing up, like he was a lifeguard and I was a lifeguard and he did neurosciences and emerge and I did neurosciences.

And he went to McGill, as I'm sure you’re aware. And it kind of opened my eyes to the possibility that, hey, maybe doctors can be astronauts too, and that medicine probably should be something that I should consider pursuing. As part of, like, my career path going into university, I had done lifeguarding, like I mentioned. I was also doing a bit of pre-hospital care as part of the campus emergency first response team.

So medicine wasn't entirely foreign to me at the time, and I was surrounded by people who were all, you know, trying to get into medical school too. So there was that encouragement as well. But I would say that was a bit of a turning point in my career path.

00:03:31 NB: That's so interesting that your first kind of look into medicine was inspired by aerospace medicine and now it's a big part of your career now.

00:03:41 MT: A bit of a full circle.

00:03:43 NB: Exactly. How do you manage to integrate all these different interests now into your practice?

00:03:50 MT: Yeah, it's a very careful balance and I wouldn't say it happened all at once. You know, I’d gone into medical school and I had done some graduate work before, obviously, like as you had mentioned with the Canadian Space Agency and interested in space medicine. But when I got into medical school, I really wanted to focus on becoming a good physician and, you know, I'd kept up on a little bit of research. But the goal was really to figure out what specialty interested me and become a good doctor first.

And then I got into residency and my goal there was really to learn how to become a good anesthesiologist and doing all these other things was not really a huge priority for me. I wanted to really focus. And as I graduated or was approaching graduation, I kind of revisited all these things that had interested me throughout my life.

And, you know, I was feeling pretty good about my residency program. And as I entered practice, you know, you get good at doing your profession. You start to look for other things to keep you stimulated and maybe think of a bigger picture. And so bit by bit I kind of re-added these different things that I was interested in, to my day-to-day career, I guess you could say. It is a very challenging balance though, I will admit, because they are quite diverse interests.

00:05:06 NB: For sure. They span a lot of different scopes. I'm curious, would you say that you have a favorite role that you hold right now?

00:05:15 MT: I really enjoy working with the residents. All through medical school and residency, I knew that I wanted to work at an academic site, not so much for the research, but more. I find working with learners really challenges you because they are constantly studying. They're constantly working with people who are at the forefront of their field and they're bringing their knowledge to you.

And I learn a lot about my own specialty and what my colleagues are doing just by working with the residents and trying to teach them, but really they are teaching me more often than not. So being the resident site coordinator here at Royal Columbian Hospital, I am in charge of the residents who come and rotate through our hospital.

We're one of the main academic sites that they rotate through during residency. So I really appreciate that exposure to them and I find it keeps me at the top of my game.

00:06:04 NB: And what does a typical week look like for you when you're balancing all of these different roles?

00:06:09 MT: Yeah, so on paper, I work 0.6 FTE at Royal Columbian Hospital and Eagle Ridge Hospital. So that's typically about three days a week. And one of the other days, I work at another site doing anesthesia twice a month.

And then two days a month, I'm supposed to set aside for my research activities. And then I have a two-year-old kid at home. So I try and leave that fifth day a week for family time, essentially. Now, in anesthesia, our schedules are not so rigid. So every week, every day is going to look different than the last week.

And on average, it may end up that way, but certainly some weeks you can end up working seven days in a row if you've got a weekend or a night and other weeks, sometimes you only work three days in the week. And that's sort of how I've structured my practice. And there's obviously sacrifices you have to make when you work less because you don't get paid if you don't work.

So certainly, I think for call, anesthesia is a call specialty, so there are nights and weekends. On average, I probably do one or two nights a month and then one weekend, maybe every other month. So certainly not a huge call volume, you know, compared to the residents who can do six, seven nights of call in a month. But life is definitely a lot better on the other side.

00:07:26 NB: It's great to hear that. So it does sound like you've sort of crafted a very careful balance between all of your interests and then your personal life as well. But to go back to something you said a little bit earlier, you said before medical school, you had sort of this interest in pre-hospital medicine in a sort of campus role. So you completed a fellowship in pre-hospital medicine and then in aeromedical transport. So do you think this experience sort of pushed you to complete that fellowship? Or can you just speak a little bit as to how you decided to pursue that and what it has taught you?

00:08:02 MT: Yeah, that's a really good question. And I get a lot of questions from residents about that because it is a bit of an atypical path. Certainly, in medical school, I was interested in emergency medicine, and I did some research in that area, you know, also based on my lifeguarding experience and experience with that campus emergency response team.

You know, for a variety of reasons, I chose not to do emergency medicine, but there's always a part of me that kind of enjoys that type of work. And so, I did a fair amount of emergency medicine electives as well as wilderness medicine electives during my residency. And as I got towards the end of residency, knowing that I wanted to work in an academic site, a lot of them wanted you to have some sort of fellowship training.

And I was interested in trauma as well, but what I really wanted to do was jump out of helicopters. And the only real places that had fellowships for international residents or graduates was Australia and the UK. And I heard a lot of great things about Australian fellowship programs. So I applied to their fellowship and really spent really a fantastic year of my life.

I really have fond memories of living in Queensland and spending about half of my fellowship in the emergency department and the other half flying both on fixed wing aircraft and helicopters as well. And just meeting like a great group of people, you know, people interested in that area all are very, you know, take a lot of initiative. They're always operating at the top of their game. They're very easygoing, but very, very competent people.

And, you know, I often think about going back to Australia and continuing that work because the model here in Canada is a little bit different and I do manage to keep my foot in that door, but certainly not nearly as much as when I was doing my fellowship in Australia. A lot of people told me in residency as I was, you know, considering what fellowship to do that it would not be a useful fellowship because we don't do it here in Canada. It's mostly paramedic model or nurse paramedic model. There's not a lot of doctors who fly.

But about half the people told me that this might be the only opportunity that I would get to do this and the chance to live in another country for a year was really too hard to pass up. And I knew that even if it didn't really lead to much of a career progression, that experience and that exposure would teach me so much, even if I wasn't doing anesthesia, just about you know, thinking on your feet, being flexible, taking initiative, improvising, which really I use every day here at Royal Columbian, which is a level one trauma center. We have a lot of sick patients who come through.

So I don't think it was a waste of a year at all. And so I'm kind of glad that I didn't listen to some of those detractors who tried steering me away from that fellowship.

00:10:47 NB: For sure. And it sounds like you had a really unique experience there. And even if it wasn't conventional per se, you were able to sort of learn something from it and integrate it into your daily practice. So that's great.

So now that we know a little bit more about your career and your background, let's shift gears a little bit and explore your interest in aerospace medicine. So, as we talked about earlier, one of the most distinctive aspects of your recent work is your research on anesthesia in microgravity. So, for listeners who may be encountering the topic for the first time, could you tell us a little bit about what sparked your interest in aerospace medicine and what is aerospace medicine and how that interest evolved into so many different research avenues?

00:11:33 MT: Yeah, that's a really good question. And I guess before I got into medicine, I had done some graduate work and I was interested in medicine at the time. So some of that research was in providing healthcare in space. And that kind of dropped off to the side as I progressed through medical school and residency for a lot of the reasons I mentioned before.

And now is a pretty unique time, I think, in our history of humankind, I guess you could say, where we're really accelerating the number of people who are traveling to space with a lot more private space flights and commercial entities. It's no longer the governments that are sending up astronauts who are 100% healthy. And I think the more people that fly in space and for longer durations, the more likelihood there is that there's going to be some sort of medical emergency.

And, you know, I've been established in practice for five, going on six years now. It's a good time to kind of branch out and a good time to seize the opportunity, you know, and the global enthusiasm, I guess, for human spaceflight to dive back into space medicine. The most recent project I did was looking at spinal anesthesia in microgravity. And so that was on a parabolic flight that was sponsored by the European Space Agency that I actually really had just randomly applied for.

I think I had some colleagues say, I was kind of bouncing this idea around and they were like, “well, why don't you just apply and see what happens?” And I didn't really have a strong research pedigree. Like I didn't do a PhD. I didn't have a ton of publications. I really hadn't done any space medicine research since before undergrad, but I guess I put together a pretty compelling research plan for the European Space Agency that they saw value in it.

So I was able to assemble a team of residents and medical students and one of my colleagues, and we created a model of, basically, the spine where the fluid sits in, and we injected simulated spinal anesthetic medications during a parabolic flight, and to see how it would behave in microgravity.

And so parabolic flight, if you don't know, is essentially a modified commercial aircraft that literally catapults you through the air and flies a sequence of parabolas. During each parabola, you get about 30, 35 seconds of microgravity where you're essentially free falling through the air. And so it's a perfect vehicle for looking and seeing what happens to fluids when you're injecting them in that environment.

00:14:05 NB: And what are some of the clinical implications for this research?

00:14:09 MT: So, like I mentioned, as more people are going to space, the chance that you have some sort of medical emergency goes up. And if you're on the moon or on your way to Mars, immediate evacuation is not necessarily an option for you. While nobody's performed surgery in space, you know, anesthesia is not just for surgery. You'll need it for other procedures as well, like splinting a broken limb or, you know, you could do remove an appendix under certain types of anesthesia.

The issue is most of our general anesthetics, where we put patients completely to sleep, it's not really feasible on a spacecraft for a number of reasons, one of which is the amount of equipment you need just to provide a general anesthetic is already prohibitive, just in power and weight. You need a lot of monitors, you need a lot of specialized equipment to keep someone's physiology normal while in space. Not only that, our most commonly used general anesthetic is an inhaled anesthetic.

You can imagine if there's an accidental disconnection in the breathing circuit, like every astronaut on that spacecraft is going to become anesthetized, which could be a really big problem. So it's not really a realistic option in space. Injected anesthetics could be an option, but again, like the volume of medication you would need to bring with you to provide decent duration of anesthesia is a bit prohibitive.

So people are looking a lot at regional anesthesia where you numb the part of the body that you need to operate on. And one other way that's kind of been looked over is spinal anesthesia, which we do for, you know, women having C-sections and patients having hip replacements and knee replacements where you inject medication around the spinal cord and you numb a part of their body.

By adding dextrose to that medication, we can make it heavy in relationship to the cerebral spinal fluid. And if it's heavy, it sinks. And by positioning patients, left side down, sitting on their back, lying on their stomach, we can manipulate where the medication goes and control which part of the body we numb. But obviously that relies on gravity. And so one of the big questions is when you remove gravity, what actually happens to that medication? Does it spread the same way you would expect it to?

One of the concerns is that it spreads all the way up to the brain and can cause seizures or loss of consciousness, breathing problems, heart problems. And we really don't know if it's even a viable option. And so, you know, this research was one step towards answering that.

00:16:37 NB: That's so interesting. And I think, as you mentioned, now that more and more people are going to space, it's amazing to see that physicians have a place there and can contribute to helping advance the research in that front. So I think it's amazing. Your team actually recently had the opportunity to go to France to experience microgravity. Can you tell us about that experience and how you felt in that moment?

00:17:00 MT: Yeah, so, you talk to people who have been on parabolic campaigns before, and they try and describe to you the sensation of free falling through the air, but I think nothing really prepares you for it like experiencing it for yourself. It's a bit like the crest of a roller coaster where you experience a period of hypergravity as you go into the parabola, 1.8g, so you're pressed down into the floor. Every part of your body is twice as heavy as it normally is.

And then instantaneously you go from 1.8g to zero g, exactly the same level of gravity an astronaut would experience. And your brain just has no idea how to interpret that sensation for the first time. And I legitimately thought that we were crashing and we were all gonna die and that there was some massive problem with the aircraft because my brain couldn't tell up from down. And I thought that the plane was pointing straight down.

And then I would blink and it was pointing straight up and then blink again and it's suddenly upside down. And you really, like, have no idea what's going on. And there's a reason they call it the vomit comet, it’s like it's a very nauseating experience if you're not prepared for it. But remarkably, the most interesting part is after about two or three parabolas of experiencing that, your brain figures it out, like it knows how to interpret the visual cues to remind itself what up is and what down is, even though you actually aren't in microgravity, which is like a very remarkable adaptation in such a short period of time, which is great because you only get one test parabola before you have to start actually doing your experiment.

So there's not a lot of time to get used to that experience. It’s really a once in a lifetime opportunity. I can't stop grinning. You can't see me, but I'm just smiling, remembering that experience. And I'm really glad I got to share it with my students and with my colleague.

00:18:54 NB: Yeah, I was going to say it sounds like it was such an amazing experience and it must have been so special for the rest of the team to be able to experience that with you as well.

00:19:04 MT: Yeah, one of my colleagues is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu martial artist and he was just a total natural in zero gravity. You know, like right away he was doing flips and spins and he had absolute control over his body. It was really remarkable to see. On the other hand, some other people just could not keep it under control, and they were vomiting and just not having a great time. So there's a big spectrum for sure and there's nothing that can predict how you're going to respond.

00:19:32 NB: Right, so it was a good thing that you responded well then. When people hear space medicine, it might sound sort of futuristic or distant from everyday clinical care. What do you think at work in space can also teach us about care here on Earth? I can think of, for example, remote or transport, resource limited environments, et cetera.

00:19:54 MT: Yeah, that's a really good question because really, you know, everything we do is for improving our understanding and really for the benefit of humans here on Earth. And so, you know, a lot of grants, a lot of people actually ask me when I set out to do this research project, you know, like what's the benefit to our patients here on Earth?

And really everything we do in space, not just medical, we should always be asking the question “what the benefit is to people here on Earth?”, because that's the whole reason why we do research and why we engage in these opportunities. And so for humans here on Earth, I think there's a lot to be learned, not just with remote medicine and learning how to operate in austere environments and provide medical care with very limited resources.

There's a lot of physiologic changes that mirror what we see here on Earth. With our aging population here in Canada, people use microgravity and exposure microgravity as a surrogate for researching aging, osteoporosis, cardiovascular changes that come with aging in a very accelerated manner. For people who were previously healthy, we see these changes happen in a relatively short period of time.

And so, we can apply some of those learnings here on Earth. Strategies we use to limit or prevent bone degeneration and cardiovascular changes can be adapted for patients here on Earth. And so, I think that's one way that the research helps apply here on Earth. But specifically with my project, spinal anesthesia is a very reliable form of anesthesia. But there's a lot of factors that go into how it works.

It's not just the density of the medication that I alluded to earlier, but injection speed and spread and you can't really isolate some of those factors without removing gravity. And so, this research program gives us a better understanding of how spinal anesthetics work and potentially can lead us to improve the techniques here on earth to make it more reliable and more safe for our patients. Yeah, so I think every research program should have some sort of applicability for patients here on earth. Yeah, if that answers your question.

00:22:02 NB: It does. So, what I'm hearing is, it's amazing research and it's very cool to experience a sort of space simulation, but it does have some very real impact and some very real implications for medicine here on Earth. So it's amazing to see the marriage of both.

So we've learned a lot about your career and your sort of research in aerospace medicine. Let's talk about the future now. So in 2011, you co-authored an article on the future of human space exploration. So I'm curious now in 2026, whether your thinking has changed since then and how you see the role of physicians and particularly anesthesiologists now in the future of human space flight?

00:22:48 MT: I was very fortunate that Dave Williams, the Canadian astronaut, asked me to co-author this paper with him. I think, like, that was quite a surreal experience and I was very fortunate to work with him as part of my research with the Canadian Space Agency. I think I owe him quite a bit for my career trajectory and where I am today. So, very grateful for that.

That was what, 15 years ago now? And a lot has changed in 15 years. And I think, you know, with technology, it's an exponential growth. With the advent of AI in just the last few years, I think it's only going to accelerate. And the number of people we're sending into space is only going to get greater and greater, especially now, you know, with the Starship platform and these commercial space stations planning to go up into space.

It's difficult to predict sometimes too, because a lot of human spaceflight activities are so dependent on governments and government backing. And we've had a bit of ebbing and flowing over the last decade, I guess you could say. I think I'm very hopeful these days that humans will actually finally have a permanent presence on the moon.

I think, you know, NASA has put out these plans and they've always put out plans. But I think we're in a different time in the world now where technology and political will is getting us to the point where it's actually a feasible opposition. And from an anesthesiologist perspective, I think it's only a matter of time before someone's going to need some medical procedure that requires anesthesia.

Even something as simple as setting a bone where you won't be able to give a general anesthetic on the moon. And the return time to Earth could be several days and that limb could be at risk of being lost from vascular or nervous damage, and the only quick option is to provide some kind of anesthetic to set that bone. So I think we have a real, not just anesthesia, but I think physicians in general have a real role to play.

And it may not necessarily be actually being in space, but by providing the expertise and the groundwork to help guide relative experts, even if they're not medical experts, they're experts in their field and very intelligent people, through complex medical procedures. And there's lots of research that's shown that non-medical professionals can perform medical procedures when they're guided through it. So, I think we have a big supporting role to play as humanity ventures out into the solar system.

00:25:18 NB: Absolutely. And given the opportunity, I'm curious, would you ever go to space yourself or act as a point person here on Earth for people going into space?

00:25:29 MT: Yeah, I mean, I think it's no secret that I've always been interested in being an astronaut. There's a lot of people out there who are interested in becoming astronauts. So if somebody handed me $10 million and said, oh, you get a flight to the ISS, I probably wouldn't say no. But I'd definitely make sure that it was worth every cent of their money and make sure that we learned a lot out of it.

00:25:48 NB: For sure. For the listeners, Dr. Turnock is smiling ear to ear. Now, what do you think our biggest unanswered question is regarding space medicine and anesthesia?

00:25:58 MT: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think probably the biggest unknown and biggest limiting factor, not just the mechanics of delivering an anesthetic, but we really have no idea how the drugs are going to behave when they're exposed to radiation and exposed to microgravity.

There's been some research out there on, you know, degradation of medication, but we don't even know if the medications will work, if they'll work as effectively as they do on Earth, if they're even going to become toxic byproducts. And by giving a medication, we end up making the patient worse. I think there's a lot of unanswered questions with regards to the pharmacology of medications in space.

You know, we send up medications with the astronauts and you know, they obviously take their anti-nausea pills and anti-congestants, but you know, antibiotics tend to degrade in space. And without knowing that, we really have no idea, like we can simulate the procedures and we can investigate how the medications behave on a physical level, but pharmacologically, we really have no idea yet. And I think that's a huge area of research that we need to investigate.

00:27:05 NB: And with that said, is there anything regarding that you would like to achieve in the near or the far future in terms of research?

00:27:14 MT: I can't give away all the secrets, so you'll just have to stay tuned and see what we come up with.

00:27:19 NB: Great. I know that you're also a volunteer for North Shore Rescue as an advanced medical provider. So that was super interesting to me when I discovered that. So for those who might not know them, they're an association who organize search and rescue teams on a volunteer basis in Vancouver for people in distress in mountains, canyons or forests.

How did you get involved with them? And can you talk to us a little bit about what your role is in those search and rescue missions and what you like about them?

00:27:48 MT: Yeah, you're covering a lot of ground today. Yeah, as you mentioned, North Shore Rescue covers the North Shore Mountains in North Vancouver. They're a entirely volunteer search and rescue organization. A lot of search and rescue in BC is run by volunteer organizations. There are other, there's like a military base that also performs search and rescue activities.

But North Shore Rescue is unique in the sense that it's the busiest civilian search and rescue team in Canada, although there's another team that's rapidly approaching us. But it also happens to be one of the first to do aerial rescue and especially night vision rescue. First civilian team to be licensed for night operations.

And the reason that they're so busy is that the North Shore Mountains are incredibly close to a major metropolitan city, Vancouver. And so, it's very easy and very quick to get into the wilderness. It only takes 20 minutes before you're in the mountains. And so, the ease of access combined with a large population is a recipe for getting yourself into trouble very quickly.

And a lot of our rescues involve people who are poorly prepared for the environments that they're going into. It could be summer and 30 degrees in Vancouver, but there's still snow in the mountains. And if you're out there in shorts and running shoes, you can get yourself into a very tricky situation. And so that combination of things keeps the team very, very busy.

I got involved as an advanced medical provider, which is a group of physicians and one nurse, mostly emergency medicine, but also two anesthesiologists, who provide support to the team for high acuity medical conditions. So, there's a set of criteria that the team will use to call on us. We don't go on every search and rescue call, and so we'll deploy with the regular members of the team to provide, you know, higher level medical support.

We have a whole kit and drugs that we can give. And one of the main benefits that we provide is the medical decision making. It's not even necessarily the procedures that we can perform, although we can perform some advanced procedures. The rescues are highly technical in that environment, and the regular members are already cognitively overloaded just thinking about how to rescue the person.

They don't need to be also overloaded with the medical aspects of treating that person. And so I think having us there, even making simple medical decisions really frees them up to think about the bigger picture about how to extract that patient in a safe manner and how to keep the team safe. So, very fortunate to be part of that team.

And again, like my pre-hospital fellowship, it's just full of really incredible individuals who are operating at the top of their game and really highly skilled and just very affable people that are just very inspiring to work with. So I'm very fortunate that I was invited to join that team.

00:30:37 NB: It sounds like really rewarding work, and it's amazing to see how you're bringing in other aspects of your interest into a medical role.

00:30:46 MT: It gets me out of the hospital, which is a nice change.

00:30:50 NB: For sure. Do you think you had experiences in the past or maybe special attributes that helped you come into this role?

00:30:57 MT: I mean, I think the advice that I give a lot of medical students and residents is to follow your passion. And if you do something that you're interested in that's fun for you, you'll just naturally work hard at it. And by working hard and practicing, you become good at it.

And try and avoid checking off boxes on a list because you think it's going to get you a good residency position or doing research, even if it doesn't interest you, because it'll look good on your CV. Because I think, having been on the residency selection committee, it's quite easy to see through those things.

Whereas, if you do something you're really passionate about, you just naturally excel. And that's kind of what we're looking for when we're looking for new residents, is people who are dedicated and who excel in a certain area, not people who have just done a little bit of everything because they think it'll make their application look good.

And your life will be so much more fun if you do things that you're interested in. Your career is a very small part of your life, so make sure you keep that balance between your work and your life. And if you can make your work fun, then you'll never work a day in your life.

00:31:59 NB: Absolutely. I think that's great advice. And that's actually a perfect segue into our last little bit of this talk. So, in our MedTalk series, we always like to ask our guests what advice they have for trainees in health and medical science. So would you have any other advice that you would like to give to students who are drawn to medicine but are interested in building a path that is not entirely conventional?

00:32:22 MT: I've met a lot of residents who are very motivated, and the ones who succeed are the ones who forge their own path. And it's very tempting to look around and say, oh, well, nobody's done this before, and so it's probably not a viable option. But I think that's just an opportunity for you to be the first.

And yes, it's going to be more work than it is if you follow a traditional pathway, but the rewards at the end are so much greater. And I think by ignoring the traditional path that was pushed onto me during residency, I had this amazing opportunity in Australia and that opportunity just opened more doors for me and has led to the varied practice that I have now.

And so it sort of goes back to what I was saying before. If you're doing something that interests you, even if it does seem non-traditional, you'll just find yourself in a place where you created these opportunities for you that you wouldn't otherwise have had and can lead to a very rewarding career, both personally and professionally. So don't be afraid if nobody's done it before, it just means you get to be the first.

00:33:22 NB: Yeah, I think that's amazing advice for our listeners. So this concludes our talk today. I think we've learned a lot about a lot of different things and it was super interesting to hear your perspective on the future of space flight medicine and the research you've done in the past and all the new exciting things that are coming up.

Outro

00:33:41 NB: So I want to thank you a lot for taking the time to speak to us today. I'm sure listeners will really enjoy this episode. So thank you very much, Dr. Turnock.

00:33:52 MT: Thank you so much, Noha, and good luck on your future CaRMS match and your future residency career.

00:33:59 NB: Thank you so much, Dr. Turnock. And thank you to our audience for joining us on another episode of the McGill Journal of Medicine Med Talk series. Please see the show notes where you will find a full transcript of our conversation, as well as links to any relevant papers and projects that we've discussed.