Naval Aerospace Medical Institute Flight Surgeon Awarded National Scholarship

From Navy Medicine Operational Training Center Public Affairs

PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- A Flight Surgeon from the U.S. Navy's premier aeromedical training facility was awarded a $2,000 scholarship by one of the most recognizable aerospace medical organizations in the United States, the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute announced Dec. 28.

Cmdr. Chris Orsello, a Flight Surgeon at NAMI in Pensacola, Fla., was notified by the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA) that he was selected as the 2012 AsMA Fellows Scholarship Competition Winner for his research, manuscript, and presentation titled "Height and In-Flight Low Back Pain Association Among Military Helicopter Pilots."

According to AsMA scholarship committee members, the award was based on the high scientific value, originality, quality, and relevance of Orsello's work.

Orsello, currently assigned as the Chief Resident Assistant within the NAMI Aerospace Medicine Residency has also been selected to assume command of the medical department of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), in 2013. A 14-year Navy veteran specializing in Preventive Aerospace Medicine and Family Medicine, Orsello said the recognition in his community underscores the significant work and advances naval aerospace medicine has made.

"Flight Surgeons, physiologists, nurses, and aviation med tech corpsmen are ensuring that aviators and aircrew in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, as well as from other branches, are provided the best possible care," he said. "This award is the direct result of their expertise and continues to highlight how important Navy Medicine readiness is to aviators and aircrew called to engage in highly challenging operations under austere conditions."

AsMA, the largest, most-representative professional membership organization in the field of aviation, space and environmental medicine, serves as an umbrella, providing a forum for numerous disciplines to share their expertise for all individuals involved in air and space travel medicine. Approximately 25 percent of the membership is international.

The AsMA Fellows Scholarship is designed to offset the costs of registration fees, transportation, hotel accommodations or other expenses incurred by attending a scholarly meeting on a topic related to aerospace medicine.

Orsello said he plans to use the funds to create a NAMI Aeromedical Award for Excellence designated specifically for local eligible corpsmen ranked E5 and below, by holding a scholarly competition to foster their innovative ideas toward aerospace preventive medicine.

Funding will also be used to attend the 2013 Scientific Meeting of the Aerospace Medical Association in Chicago in May 2013, for which he and colleagues have been selected to present three new key research projects that target aeromedical injury prevention. The new research will be the first to analyze 15 years of hearing loss incidence across all branches of aviators in the Department of Defense, 30 years of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps ejection injury patterns and is designed to capture the prevalence, predictors and mission impact of neck pain among Navy helicopter pilots.

Aerospace medicine concerns the determination and maintenance of the health, safety, and performance of persons involved in air and space travel. As a broad field of endeavor, aerospace medicine offers challenges and opportunities for physicians, nurses, physiologists, bioenvironmental engineers, industrial hygienists, environmental health practitioners, human factors specialists, psychologists and other professionals. Those in the field are dedicated to enhancing health, promoting safety, and improving performance of individuals who work or travel in unusual environments.

NAMI is a component command of the Navy Medicine Operational Training Center (NMOTC), the recognized global leader in operational medicine. NMOTC, in turn, reports to Navy Medicine Education and Training Command (NMETC), an organization maintaining oversight of Navy Medicine education and training.

NAMI, NMOTC and NMETC are all part of the Navy Medicine team, a global health care network of Navy medical professionals around the world who provide high-quality health care to more than 1 million eligible beneficiaries. Navy Medicine personnel deploy with Sailors and Marines worldwide, providing critical mission support aboard ships, in the air, under the sea and on the battlefield.