Class 1 Medical Content
For those who are… er… “still thinking about it”, I thought I’d share with you what my initial Class 1 Medical comprised of a couple of weeks ago.
I arrived at the grey-and-glass building (Gatwick) just before 8:00 am, signed in, and was told to sit in the FCL waiting area – right under a red sign telling me that all medical applicants should wait in the main atrium! At 08:40 I was shown to the medical area on the other side of the atrium where I was invited to go to the changing area, take off just my shirt and put on a white robe. Suitably bedecked, I made the first of many associations with the waiting-couch just behind the medical reception area. Wondering what was going to happen first, I whiled away the time listening to the administrators’ all important gossip on the previous night’s telly, etc. Finally, at about 08:50 I was approached by an enthusiastic Optometrist who took me to his testing den. The events then unfolded thus: -
1) Eye test with and without my glasses. The man congratulated Boots for prescribing the correct lenses for me. He told me my eyes were good enough for a Class 1 but only with my glasses (mild prescription). Then back to the couch.
2) Next up, a nice young lady measured my height and weight and then gave me a prick in my finger (must be a joke in here somewhere) to draw a small blob of blood for checking iron-content and cholesterol levels. This was followed by a urine sample which I placed into the requisite hole in the wall, never to be seen or heard of again. Then it was a red-faced lung capacity test, three times. All OK and straight to the next test room.
3) Into a sound-proof booth with headphones on to listen and nod to a range of really quiet sounds. Then off with the cans, out of the booth and a sound probe pushed into one ear at a time. This measured the bounce-back frequencies of sounds injected into my lug-holes; no bull****ting here – my opinion was superfluous as the kit found out for itself if my eardrums were capable of wobbling in sympathy. OK’d and back to the couch.
4) Next room and on to a doctor’s couch for a 21-point resting ECG to check that the ticker was still beating. OK’d and back to you-know-where.
5) Then it was time for the mysterious EEG. Nothing to worry about here as a really pleasant granny scratched clearings in my Barnet, glued 14 electrodes to my scalp and clamped my wrists with heart-monitoring sensors. I was then told that “we” were going to look for my brain’s alpha waves, produced whilst conscious but with eyes closed. This would seek out any pesky tendencies towards stress-induced epilepsy. I risked joking about whether this test could also detect any sense of humour but the absolute silence suggested that the highest contempt was the only appropriate response to such childishness. Having nearly nodded off to the oh-so-soothing repetitions of “slow breathing, eyes open, eyes closed” instructions, we moved onto 3 minutes of deep, fast breathing to create hyperventilation then to rest, and then… WOW! Disco-time! Stroboscopic psychedelic patterns were blasted straight through my eyeballs into the cranium to see if my grey-matter could make alphas at the same rate. Everything seemed OK with apparently text book perfect results. Back to the couch.
6) Next on the agenda was The Doctor who measured my blood-pressure, looked at my palms and pushed me around a bit to see if I could stay balanced on my feet. Then it was down to underpants and onto the couch for some rigorous stomach kneading and a quick look at the plums for testicular peculiarities. Then round to the dark room for a chest x-ray… twice. The first one didn’t work (nothing to do with me having no chest). All checked out OK. At this point, Sir said he would be issuing a Class 1 certificate but best to wait to get the paper in my hands before committing money to theory courses. Wot, no finger-up-the-bum prostate gland searching/feeling? I was anxious to check that he didn’t have both hands on my shoulders at the time. And no blood-taking? And not back to the couch? I felt cheated.
Four hours after kick-off, I was in the lift to the CAA canteen. The whole medical testing having taken about 2½ hours in total to complete; the rest of the time was spent waiting. But then the £422 had to be justified somehow. The medical was done Monday morning and the certificate arrived a week on Wednesday, i.e. 9 days later via 2nd class post!
Now the hard work really kicks in. Good luck to all you fellow gonnabies – go for it!
Tango49