Who is John West?
From Mt. Everest to Deep Space
John B. West was born in
Adelaide, Australia, in 1928. For as long as he can remember, he has been
interested in science. In high school he was always trying to do simple
chemical experiments at home. He liked to build radios too. It was in his
last years of high school that he fell in love with physics and chemistry.
Why not biology? Those were the days before biology was taught in his high
school.
Medical School in Other Countries
John went to high school in
Adelaide, although it was called Prince Alfred College. It was one of the better
high schools in town. One of his uncles was a teacher there. John decided to go
to Adelaide University for college. At that time it was the only college in the
state of South Australia. He went straight from high school into medical school.
This was how it was done at that time in Australia. It is also how it was done
in many other parts of the world where students go from high school (or
gymnasium as it’s called) into medicine or some other science. However, John did
not really like physiology in medical school, partly because it wasn’t taught
very well.
Finding Physiology
After getting his degree and
becoming a doctor, Dr. West moved from Australia to London, UK to get more
training and to see the world. It was while he was doing more training there
that he found out that he liked learning about how things work in the body. So
he decided he should study either the heart and blood flow or the lungs and
breathing. He got the chance to stay in London when the Royal Postgraduate
Medical School started a new program for people doing research on lungs and
breathing. At that time there was a famous book called The Lung by
Julius H. Comroe that taught him a lot and helped him in his research. While at
that school, Dr. West started to work with a new piece of equipment that allowed
him to study the gas that you breathe out. He found out that he really liked
that area of research.
Back and Forth Across the Ocean
During his 15 years at the
Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Dr. West was able to take trips to other
places to do other types of research. In 1960 he took part in a research trip to
the Himalayan Mountains. In 1961-62 he went to the US for a year to work in the
lab of a famous physiologist in Buffalo, NY to learn new ways to do his research
on the lung. Then in 1967-1968, he went back to the US to the NASA Ames Research
Center to study what happens to lungs in space.
In 1969 he was asked to move to
the US to help start a new school for doctors at the University of California,
San Diego (UCSD). He moved to California and is still there today.
Teaching Physiology
In his job, Dr. West does a lot
of teaching. He teaches physiology to students studying to be doctors during
their first year. He has always liked to teach and has even written books on
teaching. He is a very good teacher and has gotten many awards for teaching,
including the APS Teacher of the Year Award in 2002.
Physiology Research on Mountains and in Space
Dr. West also does research.
However, he is different from most people in that he does research in more than
one area. In his studies on lungs and breathing, he looks at blood flow in the
lung and finds the areas where there is more or less blood flow. At the moment
he is very interested in looking at the smallest blood vessels in the lung and
how they are hurt when a person is having a hard time breathing from low oxygen
or other stress.
A second research area he
studies is how the body works high up in the mountains. Dr. West has been lucky
to take part in two major trips to the Himalayan Mountains. The first was in
1960‑1961 and was led by the famous explorer and mountain climber Sir Edmund
Hillary. When he asked to go along to help with the physiology experiments, they
took him, even though he had never done any mountain climbing. He was a part of
a small group of physiologists who stayed the entire winter part way up the
mountain. Then in 1981, he was asked to lead the American Medical Research
Expedition to Mt. Everest. He did the first physiology experiments ever at the
very top of the mountain. Right now he is studying whether adding oxygen to the
air in a room helps people do better who work up high in the mountains.
The third research area he
works in is physiology in outer space. Because he wanted to find out what
happens to lungs in space, in 1967-68 Dr. West went to work at the NASA Ames
Research Center. His studies on how lungs work in astronauts have been done on
four Spacelabs. He also has one experiment running on the International Space
Station.
Looking at the Past
Dr. West is also a student of
the history of physiology. He studies how important things were found out about
physiology in the past and who the people were who did the work. Then he writes
books about what he has learned. He has also started a special section in the
main library at the college that is on the history of medicine and physiology
that has been done in the high mountains.
Outside Interests
In his spare time, Dr. West
enjoys listening to classical music and reading great books. He also likes to
fly radio‑controlled gliders at the famous Torrey Pines Glider Port, which is
only ten minutes from his home. He also helps out at a library near his home and
has even been asked to be someone they can come to for advice for several years.
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