Agree top post Jandakot Joe...
...& the article courtesy of Ms Howard is definitely worth at least 2 choccy frogs...
Noticed that the CVPA have an update which can be viewed
here .
This bit is most interesting...
:
AAT Update
The hearings which were scheduled for next month have now been adjourned at our side's request. This was due to the sheer amount of preparation that is still required and our limited resources. The new hearing date is scheduled to commence on October 21.
While we were looking forward to progressing to hearings next month, we don't want to rush this case given it's significance. CASA were not of the same view, arguing that they wanted to continue progressing to hearings ASAP as they were concerned we were running a campaign in the media to discredit them. Our lawyer's response was that CASA have been running a campaign to discredit CVD pilots by writing to all the DAME's and AOC holders.
However coming back to Ms Howard's article and this quote...
“We do not consider this aspect of (the PMO’s) evidence to have been well-supported or well-reasoned and we formed the impression that (it) may well have been influenced by his desire to justify the decision he had made ... We were also troubled by the significant differences between the opinions expressed in the (PMO’s) statement of 8 October 2013 … and his oral evidence.”
Well I managed to track down the AAT hearing where Ms Howard extracted that quote:
McSherry and Civil Aviation Safety Authority [2014] AATA 119 (6 March 2014)
50. We note that in expressing that opinion, Associate Professor Navathe differed from both Associate Professor Ward and Dr McRae, each of whom regarded the risk of an incompletely incapacitating bleed causing problems for Mr McSherry whilst he was flying to be extremely small. Further, we do not consider this aspect of Associate Professor Navathe’s evidence to have been well-supported or well-reasoned and we formed the impression that this aspect of his evidence may well have been influenced by his desire to justify the decision he had made, to impose conditions on Mr McSherry’s class 1 medical certificate. We were also troubled by the significant differences between the opinions expressed in Associate Professor Navathe’s statement of 8 October 2013 on the one hand, and his oral evidence on the other.
It is somewhat unfortunate for PAIN, given the constraints of the ASRR submission closing dates, that the McSherry case couldn't be included in their submission prepared for CVDPA, see (
here).
It would have fitted quite nicely in this part
:
9) Dr Navathe’s decision making abilities have been called into question on numerous occasions, notably during previous coronial and AAT hearings; including the now infamous 'Hempel' case; 2013, in which Dr. Navāthe presented a diametrically opposed argument to that which he espoused during an almost identical medical scenario, ([FONT="Verdana]Hazleton v CASA[/FONT]); 2010, in which different rulings were made; but, the comments relating to Dr. Navathe performance and knowledge were similar. The Hazelton AAT findings are germane and support the CVD pilot construct...
However Ms Howard's AAT quote does further highlight the conundrum Dear Watson, AP Shambolic may find themselves in, come the AAT hearing (now in October). From Watto's article:
Quality of Evidence
One of the core components of the evidence-based medicine paradigm is the quality of the evidence being considered. Often the evidence used in reaching an aeromedical decision comprises a mixture of published research reports and individual expert opinions.
Medical evidence can be sorted into a hierarchy based on evidence quality (2,3,5,7,8). Such a hierarchy could list systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials as the highest quality evidence, and then descend through randomized controlled trials, non-randomized intervention studies, observational studies, and non-experimental studies, to unsupported expert opinion as the lowest quality of evidence. Table I illustrates this concept by categorizing evidence quality into levels 1–5. (refer PDF page 2
here)
Hmm...interesting times ahead for the PMO, Dear Watson & the Flying Fiend legal crew...
