February 2006 - American Bonanza Society

Kill Devil Hills, N.C. -I'm writing this at the end of2005 and it will be in the February issue. Sorry I didnot get a medical subject into the January issue.I have a valid excuse: I was trying to keep up withJohn Miller while he was here for his Decemberbirthday bash. and frankly, I didn't have the timeor the energy for a column. I'm sure John haspenned his usual entertaining columns for bothJanuary and February. but he's a spry 100 whileI'm an aging 57. Go, John. Go!FORM 8500 FOLLOW UPIalso spent several hours in December doing my AMEhome study course, required for continuing education.AMEs must either attend a two·day seminar or participatein a home study course provided by the Civil Aviation MedicalInstitute (CAMI) every three years. The course I chose was onaviation physiology and was quite informative. It coveredeverything from barotraumas to vibration as they pertain to thefunctioning of the pilot.At about the same time, I was reading the January AOPAPilot. John Yodice, an attorney, writes an interesting column inthat magazine. This month he was discussing the insidious lossof privacy due, in his opinion, to the worrisome ability of variousgovernment agencies and departments to access andcross-reference different databases.[n particular, Yodice pointed out the Form 8500 that airmenmust fill out to apply for each new medical. I recently discussedsome of the chronically overlooked items on the form.In his article, Yodice said he will not be putting his SocialSecurity number on the form in the future and will ask that theSecretary of the Department of Transportation remove it fromprevious forms. (I didn't know you could do that, but [ guessyou can if you ask.)My comments re the SS# were all related to how muchsimpler it was for the AMEs to type in the number rather thanto search for the pilot by name. I don 't think I mentioned thatgiving the SS# on the form is voltmtal),. If you are concernedabout privacy issues, you certainly don't have to put it down.One problem I have had is when a pilot initially does notgive his SS, then at a later examination forgets that he previouslywithheld it. This time he does put the number on theform.When the AME tries to find the airman by the SS#, he willbe told that the airman does not exist in the files. Trying again,by name, will show the airman with a random "pseudo" numberpreviously put in that field by the AeromedicalCertification Division (AMCD). The AME has to sort out withAMCD the new number associated with that person. I guessthe point is that it is helpful to your AME if you are consistentwith your anonymity IAnother interesting point made in the AOPA article wasrelated to the ability of the FAA to cross-reference the informationon the Form 8500 with the National Driver's Registryto check for driving violations that relate to alcohol.The point made in the article was again directed towardthe insidious use of information that we VOluntarily give.Yodice commented that we voluntarily give "permission" toaccess the databases with our signature, but asks if it is trulyvoluntary if the only way one can get the medical is to agreeto the computer search of the Driver 's Registry. He questionsif this might be a violation "of the spirit, if not the actual wording,of the Privacy Act."Well, I was pondering that question having just gone overthe physiology questions. One topic was alcohol use and flying.Hot in my little brain was the statistic that in the I 960s, 40percent of aviation accidents were reportedly related to alcoholand by the 1990s, only 6 to 8 percent were alcohol-related.There were qualifying comments related to the moresophisticated methods used today versus in the 1960s for postmortemevaluation for alcohol in the deceased. That is, theremay have been more victims of aircraft accidents identified asalcohol-related in the '60s because of erroneous samplingtechniques and poor understanding of how the body, afterdeath, may produce alcohol-related substances.But the statistics beg these questions: Has the use of thecross-referencing reduced the number of alcohol accidents? Ifso, does it outweigh any loss of personal privacy? Is there asacrifice of some privacy for the "greater good" at work here?Certainly quantitative proof of whether the cross-referencingaffected the statistics might be very difficult to produce.Recent decades have brought increasing public awarenessof alcohol toxicity and alcoholism. Groups like MothersAgainst Drunk Driving (MADD) and the alcohol beverageproducers themselves advertise against misuse of alcohol.The FAA, together with commercial airlines, implementeda very effective program that allowed airline pilots to admitproblems with alcohol and get trearment, with the futureoption of continued employment and monitoring. General aviationhas no such program, and the detection of GA pilots withalcohol-related problems is difficult.Insidious is also the word that can be used to describe theprogression of alcoholism. Many alcoholics function formonths or years in home and at work without clues that theyare addicted. In general practice, with multiple encounters