Having reviewed the Uber-specialist’s report in detail, even I am surprised by the extent of the express and implicit criticism of Avmed’s approach (although I obviously agree that the criticism is justified).
“To impose arbitrary, essentially non-scientific qualifications on fitness to fly, appears contradictory to CASA’s commitment to impose rigorous scientific techniques to its assessment of pilots.”
“Arbitrary rules, based on pseudoscience from small case series”.
“Speculative risks based on poor quality data taken from small number surveys that have no relevance when applied to a single case.”
Seems to me to identify some of the flaws in Avmed’s current approach quite accurately.
Avmed’s current approach is in my view a variation on what’s called “noble cause corruption”. It is in my view not corruption in the strict sense but rather bias and intellectual dishonesty.
According to Caldero and Crank (2004, p.17) noble cause is a “moral commitment to make the world a safer place.” This commitment is why most people join law enforcement agencies, and while this is an admirable goal, when the commitment to make the world a safer place becomes more important than the means to accomplish these goals, corruption may result.
Sound familiar?
We all know what the “noble cause” is: The safety of air navigation.
Avmed seems to me to believe that it’s OK to spin the facts in whichever way puts a pilot in the worst light, that it’s OK to spin whatever data they can find to portray risks to be as high as they could possibly be portrayed when it’s convenient, that it’s OK to spoon feed a supposedly independent expert some selected studies and selectively emphasised passages from studies, and that the law is for others and not them. It’s OK in their minds because it’s done for the noble cause of the safety of air navigation. It’s OK in their minds because it’s a “conservative approach” and “what the public would expect”.
There is no special expertise required to do that. It’s easy. And, sadly, it’s easy to make a comfortable living out of it.
Meanwhile I went to my appointment with the DAME and underwent the usual intelligence-insulting and integrity-insulting Avmed process. The two pairs of glasses bull**** is still being imposed - a signal example of Avmed over-reach. As usual most of the time was taken up by the DAME battling with the MRS, with me telling him again that I underwent routine lung function tests when I was in the RAAF 20 years ago and underwent occasional ECGs as part of whatever the RAAF thought they were for when I was in the RAAF over 20 years ago, and that I had my tonsils out when I was four years old, all of which stuff has been told to them over and over and over and over and over and over again before. Naturally the DAME had to charge extra because of the extra time taken. As with so much that CASA does these days, there was never any data to show that the MRS was a causally beneficial response to any safety risk. When I suggested to the DAME that the MRS was effectively an entrapment system, he agreed.
My overarching concern is not so much about the careers and life’s passions that are destroyed by Avmed unnecessarily - that’s just money and careers and aspirations and other mere bagatelles. And it’s not so much the stultifying and destructive effect is has on what should be a vibrant and expanding general aviation sector. It’s more that it’s got to the point where it’s creating risks to the safety of air navigation in fact, rather than Avmed’s delusional view of what that concept means. Avmed’s current approach creates an enormous incentive for pilots not to raise potential medical issues at all with anyone.