February 2010 - Indian Airforce

I
read with interest a recent article in the Flight Safety
Magazine and the line /phrase that caught my
attention was ‘Flying is a stressful profession’. I cannot
but wholly agree with this statement. Over the past fourfive
years, I have in some way or the other acknowledged
this in my articles in this magazine, when I have discussed
about fatigue in aviation, about low backache, spine,
about critical incident Stress Management and even
Ejection.
However, every time I have discussed ‘stress’ in
aircrew, deep inside there has been a desire to write
about stress in another branch in the Air Force, which
has neither been discussed nor acknowledged in any
form. I am pointing towards the stress of the Doc’s in the
‘Medical Profession’ which is the noblest of all professions
and in our parlance –the ‘Medical Branch’. I can already
hear certain sighs of disbelief –Wow! Do you think Doc’s
are stressed? They are the luckiest of all-pack up on
time; sharp 2 pm-lunch, bang on time don’t you see our
young bachelor Doc always at the dining table at 2.10,
he is the first one to have his lunch and first to leave the
dining room–when others are still trickling in. You will see
him at 5 pm, regular with his walk or jog or his game of
squash, or his dancing classes. You will again see him at
the appropriate time for dinner. That was no doubt, the
comfort part. We need to go beyond this.
Let’s chart the progress/careers of a Medical Officer
in the IAF
Young straight after internship, a 24 yr something,
doctor from the civil reports to an Air Force Base close to
his hometown and gets commisioned. Generally this will
not be a single MO unit, so that the young commissioned
MO gets groomed by some seniors in the SMC or he may
be commissioned from AFMC and then may be posted
any where. Life is beautiful for most of these newly
commissioned officers. If they worked in the civil prior
to joining the AF, it is a welcome change. See about 20
patients in the morning and another 25 families later in
the day, unless he is at an extremely busy base with a
relative shortage of medical officers where he may see
a little more. Rarely would there be a MO seeing more
than these no of patients regularly. He has time to read a
newspaper/ may be his medical books, have his breakfast
at leisure and enjoy a cup of tea, may be twice. He will also
find someone to respond to his other needs such as odd
work at the post office, bank, canteen etc. After working
hours, he realizes he has enough time to pursue his extra
curricular activities, and he suddenly finds facilities which
he had until now only heard of : billiards, TT, badminton,
gym, squash and may be swimming pool, all at one place,
without any membership charges, without any waiting
period to become members. Carry home pay 30 grand – a
quantum jump to the measly 5000/- he was getting after
slogging for hours in the local nursing home in the civil.
He couldn’t have asked for a better life. No two doubts
about life as discussed till here.
However, he soon realises that all is not so rosy. The
manning situation suddenly becomes SMO plus two.
SMO being a veteran with 20+ years of service does not
do DMO duties. Left are the two MOs including the young
Flt Lt. The base works 5 days a week. This Flt Lt, who is
an extrovert, has already made a whole lot of bachelor
friends-from fighter boys to the ground duty officers-
But come Thursday all his friends would start planning
for a weekend. Suddenly our Flt Lt realizes that every
weekend he is on duty – either Thu and Sat or Fri and
Sun - which means, that he is stuck. He packs up on time
everyday but weekend he is stuck! He is any day willing
to trade longer working hours on week days to get an
entire weekend off. But there is no option /solution in
sight. Mumbles his predicament to the SMO, who, as
all veterans do, tells him “See, young boy, we all have
grown up in the organization like this. DMO duties on
weekend will be part of you for the rest of your career.
You will get respite only if there are three or more MOs
at the base”. Some, enthusiastic SMO may offer, “Listen, if
you want to go out for couple of hours, I can cover up for
you.” Frustrated he discusses this with all his friends, who
may or may not sympathize with him. No one does at the
station either- because we can see only see his comforts
and luxury. For one desperate full weekend, he offers his
colleague a brilliant idea- “Sir, I will do 3-4-5 duties the
entire week –just give me the full weekend off- sir my
friends are going to a place-x –sir, couple of lady officers
are also going for this trek, sir, please” and eventually he
gets a full weekend off! So much for the joy of packing up
on time on a week day.
Given these rosy working hours with abundance
of time at his disposal every evening, he enrolls for
certain classes in the evening -Swimming, may be
dancing. Life is stressful Whosoever said that military
life is stressful? Whosoever said that Air Force Medical
Officers are stressed? Not here. Hardly has he learnt the
first steps of dancing that he gets a rude awakening - 4
weeks TD! Whatever happened to his 5000/- enrolment
fee- frantically contacts his teacher to request her to
be considerate for a month. “I will be back”, he assures.
Little does he realize that being the youngest, a bachelor,
he fits the optimum bill to be on relief pool so to say.
Four weeks later, another TD is already planned for him.
He can only dream of his dancing classes, teacher and
INDIAN AIR FORCE 2 01 0 F e b r u a r y Flight Safety 19