FAA Medical Question

On Jul 17, 9:17*am, "vaughn" wrote:
"Mike Adams" wrote in message

.. .

If you have your own physical and it finds *something, you're obligated to
report it on the FAA medical application
form.

This is a classic case of unintended consequences from a perfectly
reasonable-sounding governmental regulation. *The requirement for medical
certification may actually make pilots, especially Commercial pilots, LESS
healthy because any visit to their private physician has the potential to ground
them and forever remove their livelihood. *It is hard to think of any other
group of workers with that type of potential bombshell hanging over their head.

Vaughn

I had a conversation about a related subject yesterday. This had to do
with recruiting healthy subjects in the 40 to 60 year old range for a
clinical trial. The principal investigator mentioned that about 1 in 8
of those who self reported themselves as 'healthy' failed to meet the
screening criteria and were referred to their primary care physician
or a cardiologist. This 'unintended experiment' more or less led me to
conclude most of us with class 2 or 3 physicals may only see an MD for
a regular check up as part of of flight physical, and that is probably
the first time many of us learn of an underlying problem.

The obvious exception of course would be eye examinations.

Some health problems are preventable -- there are better reasons than
a desire to fly as PIC to stay fit, but no matter what the reason,
just do it! (Full disclosure, I own Nike stock.)

I do agree some small number when learning of a problem from someone
other than a flight surgeon will try to hide it. If the uncovered
disease is cardio pulmonary messing around in airplanes around 10,000
feet without supplementary O2 is not smart and it would be a good idea
for a prudent pilot to know that.

For what it's worth I have no such problems, but have been persuaded
O2 and a bottle of 5 Hour Energy is a good way to stay safe at 10,000
feet at night. (Hey guys, Five Hour Energy has a lot less fluid than a
thermos of high octane coffee, and that makes the need for urinating
into a ziplock bag on a long XC less likely -- more than you wanted
to know, huh?).