The Military Institute of Aviation Medicine is the only aviation medicine centre in Poland. As a medical centre, it was established in 1928 to ensure the appropriate selection, training and longest possible retention in service of military aviation personnel. It has modern simulators available in only a few centres worldwide.
About the Military Institute of Aviation Medicine
The Military Institute of Aviation Medicine (WIML) is the only aviation medicine centre in Poland.
Established as a medical centre in 1928, its purpose was to ensure the proper selection, training and longest possible retention in service of military aviation personnel. It was at WIML that the crew of the Gwiazda Polski (“Star of Poland”) was prepared for flight — a stratospheric balloon which, in 1938, was intended to reach a record altitude of 30,000 feet. In 1976, WIML provided medical preparation for the first Pole to fly into space, Mirosław Hermaszewski.
The Military Institute of Aviation Medicine has modern simulators available in only a few centres worldwide. Responding to contemporary challenges, in February 2026 WIML established the Space Medicine Laboratory, headed by Lt Col Magdalena Kozak, MD.
WIML cooperates, among others, with the European Space Agency (ESA), the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), the private sector — including SpaceForest, the developer of PERUN, Poland’s first suborbital rocket, on board which a medical experiment is being conducted by a consortium in which WIML plays the leading role — as well as with academic institutions, including the Medical University of Gdańsk, the Military University of Technology, Warsaw University of Technology and the University of Silesia.
WIML provided expert medical management support for 13 projects carried out in space by Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski. This cooperation is being continued with a view to applying the research outcomes in both the defence and civilian sectors.