Chinese med failures
Hey Soab,
Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you, You said you wanted the details of my issue, it's lengthy but here it goes.
First a little background, I have never had any medical issues of any kind in 25 years of flying, and have always exercised. That being said also know that I am 6'6" tall and weigh 290 lbs, I wear a a size 16 shoe. (or 1.98 meters and 130kg)
The initial medical I had no problems whatsoever except the blood pressure showed high. The Chinese limits are 140/90 and I was right at it. I had just had a first class a month ago and knew it was normal. But even though I am not a doc. I knew the fact that the cuff barely could fit on my arm could be the issue.
I was sent back to America and told to have a 24hr. blood psi. test done. They wire you up, put a cuff on your arm and a little electric box records the twice hourly psi readings for 24hrs. My average was 117/74.
Back in China with this info the Chinese still kept trying to take my psi. with their "one size fits all" (Which according to the Cardiologist that I consulted back in the US a too small cuff will show a false high reading 10-15 psi. high)
Finally I was sent to a Hospital with a Cardiology center and with the right cuff guess what, a normal reading.
Even with this CAAC was not convinced, like so many others I was now on their radar, I had to do another treadmill stress test, and even after that was fine I had to do a CT Angiogram, They shoot you up with a radioactive dye, and make a 3-D imagine of your heart. That went fine, no sign of coronary heart disease.
In China as you guys know the 6 month medical isn't as severe and even though with the still to small cuff (this is also the time where in amazement one doc held the cuff to my arm while the other pumped it up for a reading, I'm not kidding, actually happened. While I'm on this subject I was informed by docs. in the US there should be 4 inches of overlap, the CAAC cuff barely had a half inch, when they would pump it up it would just rip off) they claimed my psi. was ok.
On the next year check I knew I was ready, I had been exercising a lot, had been checking my psi before every trip with the co. doc using the same crappy cuff. I did the whole two day medical and everything was fine, so of course the docs wanted more checks in the form of a treadmill stress test. I did it and was told it was fine, but when compared with the one from a year ago from another hospital they didn't exactly match. So now they asked for another 24hr. psi monitor, a sonogram of my heart, and a CTA scan, this is when they shoot you with a radioactive fluid, run you on a treadmill then make an image of your heart, then the next day yet another dye and another image of your heart and compare them, all three of these test were fine.
Along with this I took it upon myself to see a Cardiologist in Hong Kong just to be sure. He ran his own test and look at the data from China and said I was fine and didn't understand their paranoia.
Even after all this the CAAC would not renew my medical. They wanted an Angiogram. This is when they cut into your artery, run a cable up to your heart, inject a dye directly into your heart and take an image. Needless to say there are risks associated with this. I had a meeting with the head of the Guangzhou CAAC Med. division to ask for a little common sense and why such extreme measures were needed. He told me and I quote exactly "Captain we know there is nothing wrong with you but this is China, the First Officer's you fly with may not be able to land the plane by themselves if something happens to you and we would be in much trouble so we must be absolutely sure"
So I refused, and came home, you have read a lot of theories on this and all are more or less correct. I do believe and have it on a very good source that some Airlines are on a lot better terms with their local CAAC docs. than others and where I was they did in fact have the highest rate of expat guys failing medicals (for what its worth Chengdu has the best). I know China well enough to know that I do believe that once you do "hit on their radar" you will always be watched extra carefully, and the reality of China as well as for these Docs is that there is no upside to using a little bit of common sense and a whole lot of downside. At the end of the day failing an expat guy on a med. check has no impact on them whatsoever but a problem not caught would most certainly cost them their job and prob. some jail time.
Sorry for the long thread but you wanted to know