Any hope for medical?

[woopig]

Hi guys. 43 year old dude here who has been excited to finally go through with this dream, but I’m learning now I might not clear the medical. I won’t bore you with the details, summary is I have been on SSRI’s for quite short term. Was associated with a major stressor (daughter had two heart surgeries, divorce). This most recent time (divorce), I was on an SSRI and Ativan to sleep. I have been off everything for months and now that the divorce is final I am happier than I have been in many years.

I lurked in here quite a bit and read the advice to contact Dr. Bruce and did so. He was quite negative about my chances so I’m kinda devastated right now. Anyone ever been told by him they had no chance but gotten cleared anyway, or should I just give up now? He’s such a great guy so I feel bad hoping he’s wrong but I’ve been wanting to do this a long time. Thanks in advance, everyone.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Ha. Fair enough. Not one shred of depression through all this. Anxiety about my daughter’s heart surgeries and about how my kids and finances would be after divorce. All of that is resolved now and I couldn’t be better. I put needles millimeters from people’s cervical spinal cords every day and have a reputation for being extremely calm when **** goes bad. So I’m not the guy they think I am on paper, but I certainly respect what they’re trying to do. Just feels like I’m being unfairly lumped in. But not sure there’s much I can do.

Agree with other posters that if Dr. Chien is not optimistic, chances are not good. You could try with one of the others for a second opinion though.

In the meantime, go light sport or start flying gliders. While LSA is somewhat limiting, it is not really too bad if your goals are flying for pleasure and not a career. Additionally, there are strong hints that the category of light sport aircraft may be considerably broadened in the near future.

So how about starting the process for light sport? That may cheer you up.

Or go take a glider lesson - most people enjoy that.

What part of the country are you in?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I do get that. I mean I understand, I really do. I just feel like watching your three year old daughter undergo two open heart surgeries in ten days and then having the girl you’ve loved for 15 years asking you to leave the house should be considered acute events and not lifelong events. I do understand the argument that I sound like a guy who would need them again if life throws something else at me, and we all know it will. But at that point I would report the new meds and go from there, seems to me.

Are they truly going to search the database to find non controlled medications from four and eight years back? To me it all seems to hinge on this. Only one event is within the three year mark during which they require medical records. Does that not help?

Unlikely they will search and find it. But bear in mind that lying on the FAA medical form is a Federal felony. If they catch you they will pull all the certificates they have issued in addition to any prosecution you might face. Most of the people who have faced that have either had an accident or incident (in which case they dig deeply) or been caught up in some sweeps they did cross-checking against disability claims.

There are several people on this board who would say that if you are presently doing well just lie as the FAA’s “have you ever in your life” questions are truly obnoxious. I am not sure I would advise that as the penalties if caught are severe. But I view this as a personal choice.

Additionally you have now discussed this on a publicly searchable forum and your identity from your username could likely be discoverable with legal discovery.

Why not just start training for light sport or gliders and seek a second medical opinion and deal with all this later? The training for light sport segues directly into private pilot if you can go that route as does training for gliders.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Thank you all so much for your time and input. I’m not ignoring your glider or LSA advice, I just live in a very small town and there’s nothing like that available around me from what I can tell.

No need to “let your dream die”. You can train for sport pilot with a CFI who does training in a normal certified aircraft. You will just need to solo and do the final training in a light sport and take the exam that way.

Just tell them you want to start with the training and are aiming for light sport.

And agreed that a second or even third opinion from a senior HIMS AME will likely help here, at least to put your mind at ease.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I’d love to see evidence that it actually has been effective in making the skies safer and that it’s worth the careers that it has ended.

There is no good evidence that the requirement for a 3rd class medical has improved the safety of flight.

Some weak indirect evidence which the FAA cites based on alcohol that it could help and some suggestive evidence based on sport pilots that it does not.

But nothing close to good evidence it improves things. Historically, the 3rd class medical evolved from the initial requirement first put in place by the CAA when it was formed based on the medicals given to military pilot candidates to select the most fit to fly candidates.