The health and wellness of the Voyagers aboard the MV Explorer is a top priority for Semester at Sea and the Institute for Shipboard Education. The ship is equipped with an advanced medical facility and is staffed with two medical teams. A doctor and nurse, as part of the crew of the MV Explorer, primarily provide care to their fellow crew-members, while another doctor and nurse, as well as a physician’s assistant look after the Voyagers aboard the ship.The medical facilities have just about everything you would find in a typical emergency room and the staff is prepared to treat everything from seasickness, to a broken limb, to cardiac arrest. The facilities include an examination room, an intensive care room, and an operating room for more advanced procedures. There is also an x-ray machine and a lab where medical staff can run blood-work and perform other tests.
John Lewis, this semester’s physician’s assistant has ten years experience in emergency medicine. He has owned and operated an urgent care clinic in Montana and worked in a metropolitan emergency room and he currently he holds a full time position in Internal Medicine with Dr. Jack K. Lewis M.D., P.C.-Internal Medicine, as well as a part-time position in a Hispanic family practice. He says that the staff here generally sees about 20 visitors a day (mostly for seasickness at this early point in the voyage) but that will typically drop off to about 3-5 people once everyone acquires their “sea legs.”
The physician for this voyage, Ann McKee, MD graduated from the University of Washington with a BS in cell biology in 1977 and a medical degree 1981 and her family medicine residency in 1984. She has been a staff physician at Group Health Cooperative since 1984 with a practice that includes the full scope of family medicine including pediatrics and obstetrics and geriatrics. She previously sailed with Semester at Sea in the fall of 1998 and spring of 2002.
Our nurse, Joan Knecht, RN obtained her MS from Cedar Crest College, her BSN from Cornell University, and an MS from Rutgers University. She is a retired professor of nursing at County College of Morris, NJ and Santa Fe Community College, NM and is currently an adjunct professor of pediatrics. She was also an Emergency Department (Level I Trauma Center) staff nurse 22 years in Morristown, NJ. This is Joan’s third SAS journey; with previous trips in the spring of 1991 and fall of 1998.
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