Dr. Justin Nast is part of a unique partnership between the American Red Cross and the U.S. Air Force.
by Alex Keilty
“When patients come in, they automatically trust you when they see the Red Cross,” says Justin Nast, M.D., about the logo that is on his name tag. His American Red Cross badge identifies Dr. Nast as a volunteer flight surgeon entrusted with the care of U.S. Air Force aviators.
How did Dr. Nast become a Red Cross volunteer flight surgeon? Interestingly, he didn’t start his medical career planning to be a flight surgeon. In fact, he was an obstetrics and gynecology resident when he was recruited by the Air Force. (An ob/gyn is the medical specialty that encompasses pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, and the health of the female reproductive system.) After joining the armed forces, he spent eight years delivering babies and caring for the health of enlisted service women.
When the hospital he was stationed at in Germany was closing, he launched into a new career: aerospace medicine. Dr. Nast says it’s a growing branch of medicine.
Dr. Nast supports the Air Force as a civilian, by volunteering through the Red Cross in the same role in which he served while on active duty – that of a flight medicine physician.
American Red Cross volunteers Dr. Dan Canlas and Dr. Justin Nast at Travis Air Force Base.
‘It’s becoming more of a thing with more people going into space,” he says.
Aerospace medicine is a specialized field. They care for pilots, other air crew and astronauts who are subject to different conditions than troops on the ground – experiencing potential exposure to G forces, spatial disorientation and oxygen deprivation.
Once he was trained in aerospace as well as occupational medicine, Dr. Nast worked in flight medicine clinics at bases around the U.S. and eventually landed at Travis Air Force Base in California. There he responded to sick calls, conducted annual physicals, and determined if people were qualified for duty. And where the squadron went, he went also.
“As an active-duty flight surgeon you go on the missions with them,” he says. “You experience the same environment.”
I wanted to continue to contribute.
Justin Nast, M.D.
Dr. Nast retired from the Air Force in 2021, but he didn’t want to give up the job he loved. “I wanted to continue to contribute,” he says.
He was familiar with the Red Cross as he had seen its staff and volunteers boosting morale on bases overseas and helping service members be in touch with their families during emergencies. He also knew they coordinated many volunteers at the base’s hospital.
So, he decided to become a Red Cross volunteer flight surgeon in 2023. The main difference between being an active-duty flight surgeon and being a volunteer is that a volunteer doesn’t deploy overseas or fly with the squadron anymore. Otherwise, the role is the same.
Volunteering one day per month gives him time for his current day jobs: working at an occupational medicine clinic and consulting about pregnancy-related issues to the Air Force. Plus, he wants to have family time with his wife and three kids. It also leaves him time for one of his big interests: anything to do with outer space. “I can’t get enough of space stuff,” he admits and says that he is currently listening to “A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts,” an audiobook about the Apollo Program.
Dr. Nast and his fellow Red Cross volunteer flight surgeons are part of a partnership the Red Cross has with the David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base.
“We play a unique role with the military,” says Nikki Rowe, Red Cross director of Service to the Armed Forces and International Services in the Northern California Coastal Region. “There is a lot of trust and appreciation from the military.”
Depended on by patients and counted on by the military, the Red Cross provides trusted support to hospitals on military bases across the continental U.S.
To find out more about how the Red Cross supports service members, veterans and their families, please visit redcross.org/SAF.
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