According to a new study, two-thirds of military and paid civilian pilots answered “yes” to at least one of four survey questions addressing their reluctance to seek formal medical advice about health problems.
This study was a follow-on to a 2019 survey of pilots conducted by Dr. William R. Hoffman, a U.S. Air Force employee at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
In the 2019 survey, Hoffman found that more than 75% of pilots “worried about seeking medical care due to concern for their career or hobby.”
The new study asked pilots to agree or disagree with several statements, such as:
- Sought informal medical advice for fear of certificate loss
- Flew despite experiencing a new symptom (physical or psychological) that warranted evaluation
- Did not disclose prescription medication use
- Misrepresented or withheld information on a written healthcare questionnaire for fear of certificate loss
When the story reporting these results was posted to our website it produced an interesting batch of comments.
Thomas Helm takes issue with the length of time the process can sometimes take:
“Following an Vitrectomy surgery on my eye, my AME requested additional tests he knew the FAA would need for review. Those tests confirmed my class 2 medical could be approved. However, it took four months for the FAA to review and approve my medical. No wonder some pilots are hesitant to get or report treatment if their profession will be put on hold for months. It seems to me that the local AME should have more authority on approving some conditions, or at least the FAA medical review be more responsive. One would improve the other as well.”
JB has a similar experience: “Going through the process currently. Passed all required testing with flying colors, report submitted last September, finally received a denial last week and requesting more testing before I can reapply. If the process cannot be streamlined and doctor’s findings be given greater consideration I understand the reluctance to disclose. As a professional pilot I have missed a lot of paychecks waiting for the bureaucracy.”
The study found, “Women were more likely than men to avoid disclosure in at least one way (62% of all female respondents vs 55.4% of men).”
Katie is curious about the female responses: “I’m curious how skewed the female data is because of a smaller data set. Females as a percentage of the pilot population are significantly smaller, so even a few more responses one way vs the other can have a larger impact on skewing the data set for that gender. Even still, interesting that more females admitted to not disclosing.”
And Dan takes issue with the method of communication the FAA allows and the number of doctors reviewing special issuance medicals: “The FAA medical review group ONLY utilizing USPS written communications is another example of a bureaucracy without accountability to the people they serve. I know of examples where 10 days passed between decision and notification. At today’s pilot pay rates, and the 30,000 special issuance medicals issued annually, that is $150,000,000 (that’s million) in lost wages just in antiquated communication practices. Eight doctors make up the review group for 30,000 SIs annually. If everybody reported everything, the system would buckle and the air transportation system would fall like dominoes.”
I’m 52 years old and in the best shape of my adult life. I took a 3rd class medical exam a few months ago and passed with no trouble. I save a PDF version of each MedXpress application and refer to it so I can consistently complete each new application.
I don’t fly for a living, so my experience and stress level is different from professional pilots, but if I’m honest, I don’t really see the results of this survey as all that surprising.
Half of the FAA is really only a records-keeping division of the government, They have subbed out most of the flight testing and engineering to designated representatives. Why not allow medical doctors to be the responsible representatives for the medical side of things?
Allowing an MD to decide on the majority of issues while creating a SMALL list of extremely rare medical issues that would require FAA approval, could clear up a great deal of backlog!
The real problem is OKC is a medical department run by lawyers. The way to speed medical approvals for 1st Class & 2nd Class meds is to relieve the back pressure of all the 3rd Class Meds SAs by switching to Basic Med or…now here’s a thought…moving to the LSA standard of a valid state driver’s license and ditching the lower class medical all together. After all a pilot on Basic Med (which frequently amounts to little more than taping a couple of $100 bills to your chest, if you find the right doctor) can load a Barron with 5 people and fly hard IMC approaches. Yet, the Basic Med program has been a resounding success.
New treatments & drugs (often only slightly different in formulation from an already approved medication) require lengthy & expensive SA processes. A bit dozy during the day? Live with your sleep apnea or suspend flying while waiting on an SA for you CPAP with 100 nights use documented before SA issuance.
A first step in reforming the medical certification system would be switching from a “permitted” drug, treatment, & condition list to a list of prohibited drug, treatments, & conditions. Let pilot be responsible for following the rules. Then do what lawyers are best at: fining or jailing offenders.
Since there are few, if any, activities that the government does well, perhaps it is time to consider abolishment of the FAA and allow free markets to regulate such things by themselves. There are far more car drivers and boaters than there are pilots, yet only pilots are subjected to regular medical examinations. We have all been in situations as car drivers that require at least as much skill and knowledge as in flying from point A to point B along a straight line. Yet no one is required to get a medical exam to obtain and maintain a driver’s license.
Au contraire!! Commercial drivers are required to get a DOT physical every other year. And those can be done by Nurse Practitioners. So the costs of my DOT physical are far less than my cost for an FAA second class physical.
But this goes to the over all point, why is it that we can’t get Basic Med done by the same people as the DOT physicals?
I love having the FAA as a buffer between us & the real estate developers who want our airports, communication companies who want our frequency allocations, & the homeowner’s associations who want us gone. Not to mention the billions of dollars of infrastructure we get to use “free” because the FAA allows us to piggyback the actual business of the commercial airline & cargo system. “you want to upsize to Flight Following to that flight plan?”
I flew GA in Europe recently with a friend. They put GA on an individual PAYGO system: landing fees, tower system subscriptions, wx subscriptions, all privately contracted.
I’m trying to imagine how the free market could regulate Pilot medicals, except to make them more expensive & burdensome than the FAA already has.
I’m not surprised regarding the FAA’s lack of timely responses to pilots waiting for their certificate to be reinstated. I wonder if the 87,000 new IRS agents will have a positive effect. Sorry for the sarcasm.
Another example of: “Hi, I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help.”
Perhaps the inadequate funding of the FAA is due to electing congressional representatives that are intent on cutting taxes and removing the implementation of regulations that serve to improve people’s lives. Government is not inherently bad. Government can only be as good as the persons who are elected to the managerial positions.
The notion that human beings in a society can only survive if they are “protected” from other human beings (and themselves), by a special class of yet more human beings (a.k.a. “government”), using money taken from the first two groups, is genuinely bizarre to me. I can’t think of a single example where “more government” has ever really had the effect (we were told) it was supposed to (and been without “side effects”), either.
Government, of any type, is inherently at risk of corruption and inefficiency because it will always involve human beings and, like it or not, NO human being is beyond fault and self-interest. The more power any given human being has and the longer they hold it, the more likely they are to get a little too comfortable in their “nest” and the more they are tempted to “expand” it and fight to keep it. (Just look at Big Joe; he has been in political office since 1971 and has held no lower office than US Senator since 1973. That’s more than half a century in power and nearly two thirds of his life, just in DC, for anyone counting.)
This is why governments work best when they are as small as possible, with authority, and responsibility that extends only so far as absolutely necessary. That approach limits both the opportunity for the government to foul things up (despite the “best” of intentions) AND limits the motivation for anyone tempted to make a life out of accumulating power. It is also why your notion that everything would be better if we only gave the government even more money and power is, in my opinion, inherently flawed and dangerous.
It’s certainly no surprise to me. And if you think it is rough for your average pilot, try being a pilot with a security clearance…