- LT Jeffrey Gertner, MD
- Undersea Medical Officer
Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory
Groton, CT
I was born in Honolulu in 1977, but moved to Texas shortly afterwards. Since my parents are both from Texas and I received all my primary schooling there I still consider myself a Texan (minus the drawl). I left high school early and attended the University of North Texas for a couple of years before heading off to New England to attend the US Naval Academy. Immediately following my graduation in 1999, I managed to continue my education at the military medical school, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, where I received my M.D. After graduation, I headed down to Pensacola, Florida for a year-long Family Medicine internship. I was lucky enough to be chosen to be a part of the Navy dive community and completed their Diving Medical Officer training program in the summer of 2005. For the past year, I have been stationed at NSMRL where I currently serve as medical monitor of human experiments, as well as executing my own projects.
My current research involves the use of pharmaceuticals to prevent or treat decompression sickness. For the next year, my projects include determining the effects of inhaled surfactant on preventing and treating pulmonary oxygen toxicity along with looking at new ways to measure the damage. Additionally, our lab always has more projects than I can list here, but I assist in the research, act as medical monitor, and serve as a human subject in many protocols of the other investigators. I consider myself exceptionally lucky for not only the opportunities I have had in my education and training, but in my current duty location as well. There are not many places in the world where I would have the chance to combine diving, research, and my military service in such an enjoyable fashion.
I am very grateful for the chance to be a part of this project. Supporting the Aquarius is a great opportunity for me to observe a new system and get involved in some saturation diving. I have already seen significant differences between the naval diving I am familiar with and the way diving is conducted here. Hopefully, I will make a significant contribution and bring back a great experience and new ideas to my command.
