Recreational interests include scuba diving, amateur radio, flying, bicycling, pistol marksmanship, camping and mountain hiking, photography, travel, reading (mysteries), and music (jazz and classical) and spending time with his best friend Keep.

In 1986 he was promoted to Associate Professor, and in 1988 assumed the duties of section chief of Clinical Pathology in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Colorado State University.

Fettman spent one year (1989–1990) on sabbatical leave as a Visiting Professor of Medicine at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the University of Adelaide, South Australia, where he worked with the Gastroenterology Unit studying the biochemical epidemiology of human colorectal cancer.

Fettman is a George H. Glover distinguished faculty member of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and was named the 1994 Sigma Xi honored scientist at Colorado State University, the 1994 Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Lecturer at Cornell University, and a Bard College Distinguished Scientist for 1995.

Since the flight, he has made over seventy public appearances representing space life sciences research before higher education, medical, veterinary, and lay organizations, and visited over twenty K-12 schools around the United States and Canada.