My 3rd Class Medical was recently deferred to the FAA by my AME. It’s no big deal except that he says the FAA backlog is FIVE MONTHS.
Has anyone else suffered a long grounding due to the FAA’s medical deferral backlog??? Any advise?
In five months, I’ll forget how to land an SR-20!
I sympathize with you, Mr. Fowler.
An acquaintance of mine, only 33 years old, made the mistake of mentioning a very minor chronic condition that he had. It is nothing that would ever impact his flying. The AME said he had to defer it to Oklahoma City, which would have resulted in the 5-6 month delay. The AME was nice: he made the paperwork “disappear.” My friend went to a different AME, did not mention the condition, and got his medical.
The medical certification system is really screwed up (at least in the USA), and its shortcomings are not getting proper attention (despite the efforts of AOPA et al.).
Every once in a while there’s a proposal floated to eliminate (at least the 3rd-class) medical for private pilots. I think this makes sense. Every time, though, the medical examiners and/or the doctors fight it. Why? I don’t know. I do know that I have to balance my own privacy with the legal disclosure requirements when subjected to the medical exam. Only I, not some doctor, will say when it’s time to quit flying.
Good luck.
If you are a member of AOPA they have a branch that will help you with the problem. If not there are a few independent contractors who will be happy (for a fee) to serve as your advocate against the FAA and attempt to expidite reissuance. Their success will depend on why you were denied a certificate by the AME. I am a former medical examiner and can appreciate your frustration. Understand however that your AME is bound by the FAA rules (some of which are completely out of touch with modern medicine) but if he doesn’t comply then he opens himself to significant liability should you ever have an accident (even if it had nothing to do with the medical condition in question.
There are many physicians (myself among them) who believe that there should be no requirement for a third class medical other than self certification.
If you need the name of someone outside of AOPA let me know.
Jerry Seckler
My 3rd Class Medical was recently deferred to the FAA by my AME. It’s no big deal except that he says the FAA backlog is FIVE MONTHS.
Has anyone else suffered a long grounding due to the FAA’s medical deferral backlog??? Any advise?
In five months, I’ll forget how to land an SR-20!
My 3rd Class Medical was recently deferred to the FAA by my AME. It’s no big deal except that he says the FAA backlog is FIVE MONTHS.
Has anyone else suffered a long grounding due to the FAA’s medical deferral backlog??? Any advise?
In five months, I’ll forget how to land an SR-20!
I am currently an AME and can appreciate the difficulties. The backlog had become so large that the FAA has allowed the regional flight surgeons to make many of the decisions that were formerly made only in OK City. Ask your AME to defer (if indeed that is what is going to happen) to the regional flight surgeon. They are a phone call away, and can get 3 months of wait reduced to one month.
Before you go in for your physical, check AOPA’s site to make sure you’re not taking any forbidden drugs. If you take a cholesterol/BP medicine, get your labs done and take the EKG, et. al. with you to the doc’s office. You can be certified on the spot by your local AME that way. As far as psych drugs, tranquilizers, or antidepressants, forget it. You have to fly depressed. aa
My 3rd Class Medical was recently deferred to the FAA by my AME. It’s no big deal except that he says the FAA backlog is FIVE MONTHS.
Has anyone else suffered a long grounding due to the FAA’s medical deferral backlog??? Any advise?
In five months, I’ll forget how to land an SR-20!
Kevin:
The reason for the deferral is important. If it is as imple problem it could be solved with the regional flight surgeon. I hope your AME is a pilot as he would understand better the consequences of sending the “appeal” to the FAA. I often get issues resolved by phone with the regional flight surgeon to avoid such problems.
In the interim, you CAN still fly. You just need another pilot to act as PIC with you.
Brian Turrisi, MD
A little more info on my case.
I’ve suffered headaches (never incapacitating, with NO symptoms other than pain)for over a quarter century. Last year, a doctor recommended I try Imetrex. I checked the AOPA web site to see if Imetrex was OK. It is. I thought I was in good shape because I found an FAA acceptable drug that worked!
I filled out my 3rd Class Medical application honestly, listing Imetrex as one of the drugs I occasionally use. The AME said “ah ha, Migraine Headaches, I have to defer this to the FAA. It’ll be a 4-6 week delay.”
I got my treating physician to write a report on my headache history for the AME to send to the FAA along with his paperwork. I asked him to call the regional flight surgeon to see if he could get a special issuance over the phone (this is advised by the AOPA web site) to avoid the backlog. He did, but to no avail, and was told that the delay was, in fact, about five months.
I think that all I can do is wait. According to its web site, the AOPA can’t even check the status of deferals until 6 weeks into the process.
As to whether or not to even require 3rd class medical certificates: a government agency should either have the means in place to fairly and effectively administer its regulations or it should design its regulations to fit its means.
Wouldn’t that be nice? As shown by this backlog, the FSO has not been given the means to administer these regulations and something should change.
Are you guys nuts?
Perhaps I have a slightly different opinion, being of the ripe old age of 36, but I have no objection to having someone do some basic eyesight, hearing, and basic mental tests every two years before he flys a plane.
My eyes aren’t all that great (correctable to 20/30), and I hesistate to think what someone with 20/40 or 20/50 vision would do up in the skies in the Bay Area.
If people want to self-certify, fine, let them fly someplace I and my friends and my property are not.
If the FAA medical regs are out of touch with reality, let’s fix the regs, not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Paul
As a practical matter, we all self-certify NOW every time we fly. All of us have had days when we cancelled a flight on account of illness or plain old fatigue (at least I certainly hope so :>). I submit that routine 3rd Class medical exams don’t add much value for the medication-free, essentially healthy pilots out there (have any of you learned something important - of a medical nature - at your FAA medical exam?). Acutely sick pilots aren’t flying in any event. So that leaves those pilots with chronic conditions requiring medication or non-medical management. Perhaps the 5 month waiting list could be shortened if self certification applied to a subset of pilots, perhaps the medication free group? In any event, the current system doesn’t seem designed for an era in which more and more of us live long enough to encounter chronic conditions, which happily (apart from the FAA) can often be managed using ever more effective pharmacologic agents.
George M. Savage, MD
Perhaps I have a slightly different opinion, being of the ripe old age of 36, but I have no objection to having someone do some basic eyesight, hearing, and basic mental tests every two years before he flys a plane.
Trouble is, the stats don’t support the notion that a valid medical certificate correlates with safety in any meaningful sense. More than one airline captain with a valid 1st class medical certificate has dropped dead in flight.
And the number of accidents attributable to medical conditions is small, and differs very little between GA pilots and (self-certifying) glider and ultralight pilots.
This argument is raging in Britain at present, coz the CAA has fallen into line with the draconian JAR regs on medical certificates, greatly increasing the cost of medical certification for no obvious benefit other than feeding the egos of public servants.
Are you guys nuts?
Perhaps I have a slightly different opinion, being of the ripe old age of 36, but I have no objection to having someone do some basic eyesight, hearing, and basic mental tests every two years before he flys a plane.
My eyes aren’t all that great (correctable to 20/30), and I hesistate to think what someone with 20/40 or 20/50 vision would do up in the skies in the Bay Area.
If people want to self-certify, fine, let them fly someplace I and my friends and my property are not.
If the FAA medical regs are out of touch with reality, let’s fix the regs, not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Paul
I agree Paul.
There are some guys I know, who won’t quit flying by themselves unless a doc will consider that by NOT issuing the certificate.
With a self-certifying system they’ll fly until they’ll fall down for some condition or dissease - maybe on you or me or our property.
I’m happy if a doc is making a decision on someones ability for flying.
Just my 2 cents,
Wilfried
I don’t think wer’e nuts. You might be interested to know that the distant vision requirement for a third class medical is in fact 20/40 with or without correction.
You also might be interested to know that a deaf person can be medically certified (with limitations to operate only VFR and at uncontrolled airports).
The point is that the requirements for a Third Class are pretty simple and self certification isn’t as nuts as it may sound. Interestingly most AMEs (I used to be one) will admit this privately. Those who do lots of exams obviously don’t want to see self certification because of the potential financial impact.
Jerry Seckler
Are you guys nuts?
Perhaps I have a slightly different opinion, being of the ripe old age of 36, but I have no objection to having someone do some basic eyesight, hearing, and basic mental tests every two years before he flys a plane.
My eyes aren’t all that great (correctable to 20/30), and I hesistate to think what someone with 20/40 or 20/50 vision would do up in the skies in the Bay Area.
If people want to self-certify, fine, let them fly someplace I and my friends and my property are not.
If the FAA medical regs are out of touch with reality, let’s fix the regs, not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Paul
I agree completely. After 15 years as an AME it was obvious that if an applicant didn’t check any disqualifying conditions on the form (I had no way to check his honesty) and if his vision was to acceptable standards (fairly simple for a third class) and he was not hypertensive he almost certainly would pass. Those that had to be deferred almost always were eventually certified by Oklahoma City (albeit after quite a bit of time and often considerable expense).
Contrary to what some have said, there really is no objective evidence tht the present certification system materially affects safety in flight. I also agree that most pilots are not going to fly when they know they shouldn’t. Those that do would probably do so even if they didn’t have a medical.
The most common medical problem affecting flight safety is the sudden incapacitation by a cardiac event or stroke. The likelihood of either is not easy to predict on an exam, especially on the routine third class medical.
J. Seckler
As a practical matter, we all self-certify NOW every time we fly. All of us have had days when we cancelled a flight on account of illness or plain old fatigue (at least I certainly hope so :>). I submit that routine 3rd Class medical exams don’t add much value for the medication-free, essentially healthy pilots out there (have any of you learned something important - of a medical nature - at your FAA medical exam?). Acutely sick pilots aren’t flying in any event. So that leaves those pilots with chronic conditions requiring medication or non-medical management. Perhaps the 5 month waiting list could be shortened if self certification applied to a subset of pilots, perhaps the medication free group? In any event, the current system doesn’t seem designed for an era in which more and more of us live long enough to encounter chronic conditions, which happily (apart from the FAA) can often be managed using ever more effective pharmacologic agents.
George M. Savage, MD
I don’t think wer’e nuts. You might be interested to know that the distant vision requirement for a third class medical is in fact 20/40 with or without correction.
You also might be interested to know that a deaf person can be medically certified (with limitations to operate only VFR and at uncontrolled airports).
The point is that the requirements for a Third Class are pretty simple and self certification isn’t as nuts as it may sound. Interestingly most AMEs (I used to be one) will admit this privately. Those who do lots of exams obviously don’t want to see self certification because of the potential financial impact.
Jerry Seckler
Jerry, I totally disagree. As an AME I doubt very many of us are “getting rich” doing exams. I would agree,however, that some of the regs,and the approved med list needs to be updated. AND the defferal process needs to be revamped. 95% of the pilots I do exams on are honest, safe people, without health problems that prevent them from flying. A few pilots do have health problems that may or may not become a problem in the air. For those folks I defer to my regional Flight Surg. Then there a very few pilots who are flying or want to fly that are not physically and/or metally fit to sit in an airplane on the ground let alone fly one. As a pilot I don’t want those people above the ground in these same continent I’m in, forget about the same airspace. AMEs serve to help keep ALL of us safe, from ourselves and others! MIKE#396 AME MD
Then there a very few pilots who are flying or want to fly that are not physically and/or metally fit to sit in an airplane on the ground let alone fly one
Unfortunately plenty of these go flying without a valid medical certificate anyway - there are lots of examples in the NTSB summaries.