The integrity of aeromedical regulation of pilots
Having experienced the medical moment in my flying career I have come away with a very low opinion of the aviation medical profession / industry / and dare I say racket.
I have experienced knee jerk panic reaction resulting in many thousands of pounds of lost wages, false promises (lying), been exposed to expensive and unnecessary tests, slow processing of paperwork, weak and unacceptably slow decision making.
Procrastination, expense, and obstruction, resulting in months and months taken to resolve essentially simple problems.
I would like to take soundings of fellow pilots and seek to get a sense of how many pilots are dissatisfied with the level of aeromedical support that is available. To see if being exposed to unnecessary medical testing is widespread in the industry and what the time scales are like clearing simple problems.
I have a hunch that because of over zealous regulation, the expense, the exposure to unnecessary and expensive testing, the long time scales involved in making decisions that many pilots avoid reporting any medical issue that they can possibly hide in order to preserve cash flow and career.
Suspending a pilots medical can have massive consequences for a pilots such that it should never be the decision of one doctor acting alone in isolated practice. Just as an engineer acting alone cannot sign off certain work without it being overseen by another engineer so suspending a pilots medical should require the signature of at least two doctors and should never be done without investigation and consultation.
If the decision to suspend a medical certificate is contested a pilot subject to the suspension should have an automatic right of appeal to a Magistrate within two weeks (or a very short time frame) of the process beginning rather than appealing for reassessment by the AME's possible "mates" at the state Aeromedical section.
Any feedback with experiences would both good and bad really appreciated.