Having been alive for the signing of the Magna Carta, you have definitely been a medical anomaly! Keep up the good work ?
So true. Absolutism has permeated our society on every level, it’s a metastasized cancer.
The FAA’s Mission is to prevent pilots from killing themselves in airplanes. They’ve figured out that the best way to do that is to keep us from flying!
And this is the question they did not ask. Survey seemed senseless if they were looking for reasons pilots may delay exams/testing.
Agree
Where I live Basic Med is not a real solution. When I checked about a year ago there were not physicians who did Basic Med within 250NM.
Why? Because active physicians are liable for signing off on Basic Med. Many times their insurer or health care organization do not allow Basic Med. The AME is not open to any liability when operating as an AME.
I have heard others say that, even in my local area, and I’m not really sure where that notion comes from. Physcians are no more liable signing a Basic Med form than they are any number of medical waivers (such as for motorsports or even CDL medicals), and I have had absolutely no problem getting my PCP to sign the BM form every few years. The BM form even specifically says that it’s the pilot who ultimately is held responsible.
I’ve been a physician for 36 years, a pilot 25 years, and an AME 22 years so I have something to bring to the conversation.
I took the survey and I do not think it will bring valuable information, but perhaps a follow up will.
I think more pilots had died of suffered medical catastrophes due to reluctance to jeopardize their medicals than have been ‘helped’ by an adversarial government bureaucratic system of certification.
“I think more pilots had died [or] suffered medical catastrophes…than have been ‘helped’…”
I agree with that 100%. If the medical certification system truly did prevent deaths, than ALL motorists would be required to submit to a government-approved medical exam every few years. There are far more motor vehicle accidents and deaths from driver incapacitation than aviation accidents (“citation needed”, but I seem to recall seeing numbers that support this assumption of mine).
In any case, I would wager that if the Germanwings second officer was able to get the treatment he needed without fear of permanently losing his job, that accident never would have happened. European vs US aeromedical certification, but my understanding is that their commercial pilots have similar medical standards to us.
There are many potentially disqualifying conditions that trap pilots, some of whom know some of them and others who find out the hard way. There are also misunderstandings about those conditions within the pilot community. But, the alphabet organizations could help if they just would. Publish a list of conditions and options, so we can make proper decisions.
Sleep apnea = disqualification?
Diabetes = disqualification?
Anti-depressants = disqualification?
Hypertension = disqualification?
What should be widely available is a site where each common specifically potentially disqualifying issue is explained, and what options are available and potential consequences. Some feared conditions that if left untreated can lead to serious conditions, especially with age. Uncontrolled high blood pressure = kidney disease. But one can take certain BP meds without disqualification. If we know the facts we could make safer decisions and maybe avoid FAA interference.
I suggest that all my pilots switch to me as their primary physician so they can be steered free of such trapdoors as I know where they all are.
As a non-professional pilot, I would just resort to basic med or go LSA. At least you’re still flying. As a pro, you’re kind of stuck as an untruthful answer can/will cost you a lot. Anyone over 60 is probably going to have some disqualifying disorder that will render them retired and most likely grounded. Even doing LSA will be off the table if the FAA is aware of your status. So I feel sorry for a lot of pilots that find themselves on the fence about whether to be 100% honest about some seemingly insignificant health issue that the FAA considers to be a BIG deal.
I have a strong hypothesis where that notion comes from: AMEs. Many AMEs are really, really opposed to BasicMed. I don’t know why: medicals can hardly be a major part of their business. Maybe they feel it’s an assault on their expertise. In any case, they seem to have started this liability talk. A few scary words in the ear of the local large medical group’s attorney and - shazam! - no doctors will do BM.
One problem is that the letter groups repeat the FAA assertion that a very high percentage of medicals ultimately get issued, AS LONG AS THE APPLICANT COMPLETES THE PROCESS.
They don’t report how many applications are dropped because the applicant couldn’t afford the massive time and financial commitment to medically unnecessary testing.
So their answer to your list will be “yes, you can get a medical with any of those conditions”. And in theory it’s true. In practice, maybe not.
“80 decades” Wow!! I have been flying more than 45 years, but only 6 decades.
But seriously, I had cancer at 30 (bladder cancer). I reported it and was “benched for two weeks” until they got ALL the paperwork. Even got a call from my chief pilot asking why I had been out sick. I told him to call OKC and speed up the process. You would think cancer was going to kill me in the next few days. The tumor was removed, no more cancer!
So many different issues I’ve encountered. In 1968 I had a melanoma which started in a mole in my chest. Not many available options in those days. Ended up with a partial mastectomy. Fast forward to 2007 when I went for my first third class medical. The AME had to send it off to OKC for approval. He told me I was probably OK since it had been 39 years but I wouldn’t stand a chance if it had been less than 10. I told him that my oncologist had said after two years the chances of a related recurrence were virtually nil, and that they found nothing during the surgery (lymph nodes, etc.) and that they probably got everything when they removed the mole.
Fast forward again to 2000. Trying to get Basic Med, my PCP refused, although not over liability, so I had to change doctors.
Finally, every time I go to the hospital, among the little bracelets the put on me is one which says “sleep apnea risk” because I said yes to two questions. One, as pointed out above was “Do you snore”, and the other was “Do you wake up at night?” It was irrelevant that I told them it was to pee, since I was (at that time) almost 70 with an enlarged prostate. (Thanks, dad). Once these things get in the computer, they never leave.
The survey is not well done and should be revised. Many duplicate questions, However, Avweb should request to publish the results.
The FAA medical system is completely broken and non-sensical. If it were not for basic med, the aviation industry would be dead.
See if this makes sense. You have a medical condition which is disqualifying and will impact 85% of the male population at some point in their lives. The medical condition is resolved through surgery, meaning you don’t have the condition any longer. If you apply for a 3rd class medical and list the medical condition, you will be disqualified. Wait, you don’t have the medical condition why are you disqualified? Because you HAD the medical condition not because you HAVE the medical condition.
Maybe if the FAA limited its assessments to “these things are shown to present a known or substantial risk” instead of some OKC desk jockey coming up with “we think it maybe possibly just might cause some sort of minor problem” or even just “well, we just figured it was a good idea to check” like getting the “turn your head and cough” treatment like my last third-class…
Maybe if the FAA stuck to generally accepted standards for assessing conditions instead of insisting on coming up with its own requirements far beyond those standards…
Maybe if they looked at your current health, and didn’t go digging in your past to see if you were (for example) diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school…
Maybe if they didn’t get a bug up their collective butt about the latest fad (sleep apnea anyone?) and come up with arbitrary standards regardless of any reported impacts…
Maybe if a certain pilots’ union hadn’t sold out on its members and the rest of the aviation community…
Maybe if the system weren’t set up to be so adversarial with so many “gotcha” traps, pilots would be more forthcoming with AMEs and be willing to work with them instead of going into it like a police interrogation.
“…all responses are treated confidentially and are stored on a secure server.” Oh really? I’m sure there a several banks, credit card companies and government agencies that would tell you there is no such thing. Even if hackers don’t get to it, the FAA can always subpoena the information if they feel it is “relevant” to any investigation they might do.
Like several other responders, I wound up on the Special Issuance merry go round because of heart surgery. Never had a heart attack and never had high cholesterol, but did have open heart surgery more than a decade before I got back into flying. So the AME kicked the application for a 3rd class up to OKC, where it languished for several weeks, followed by a request for multiple tests up to and including a radiographic stress test. I was finally given the SI, but had to repeat the process several time before Basic Med came available. I was an early adopter of Basic Med, not so much to avoid all the paperwork, but to preempt the FAA from denying the application, thus keeping me from even flying LSA. My PCP has no problem doing the BM paperwork, saying it is no more liability than signing off on a CDL, or clearing some teenager to play high school sports. He knows my medical history and condition far better than any AME I might see once every two years. By the way, in the time I was fiddling with the SI paperwork, the then Continental airlines had two captains suffer heart attacks while at the controls of a flight. One unfortunately died, while the other survived, but lost his medical. So much for the efficacy of the FAA medical.