Rick Cole, MD MPH

Dr. Richard Cole received his medical degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Arkansas and remained to complete a residency in emergency medicine. He earned a Masters of Public Health and finished an aerospace medicine residency at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. Dr. Cole completed an ultrasound fellowship at the University of Texas Health Medical School in Houston, TX. He is an Aerospace Medical Association Associate Fellow and a Fellow in both the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Wilderness Medical Society. Dr. Cole has multiple publications including the space medicine chapter in Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine textbook.  He is board-certified in both emergency and aerospace medicine. He has medical director experience and over fifteen years of clinical practice at multiple emergency departments including trauma centers and regional referral hospitals. Dr. Cole currently practices at a freestanding emergency room and NASA’s Johnson Space Center where he has supported astronauts assigned to shuttle, space station, and commercial crew missions as their flight surgeon. He is a cofounder and instructor of the Wilderness Medical Society’s course at the Mars Desert Research Station.