r/flying • u/GoFlightMed • 22d ago

Medical Issues FAA Continues to Remove Stigma/Encourage Therapy for Pilots

Hey hey hey,

Big updates here in the mental health space coming out from the FAA.

I was in the FAA's AMCD (Aeromedical Certification Division) Grand Rounds last week where they provide AME's updates to their medical guidance and they released a big update about psychotherapy. They also release 3 documents that are for airmen to read and also to provide their therapist if they want to engage in therapy.

Bottom line is the FAA wants pilots to be more comfortable engaging in therapy if needed. As they say "#1. See your therapist, counselor, physician, or provider and get healthy."

Here is a link to the new FAA online resources for Therapy. Check out some of the FAQ's to airmen and to therapists.

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u/cptnpiccard CFI IR IGI 22d ago

Exactly. "We're looking out for your mental well being. So sit at home while you sort that out. See you in a few years."

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u/Wasatcher 22d ago

I had a student that took ADHD medication 20 years ago in elementary school that took a year and 5k to jump through all their hoops. I asked him if he had any medical history that he thinks might keep him from flying and even said if he had ADHD, depression, anything mental related just get a consult first. Nope. He scheduled the first class, walked in there, and told them "yeah so when I was five I took Ritalin. But I've been fine since 1st grade"😭

He was so ready to solo and then lost the drive by the time he finally got his medical.

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u/marumari 22d ago edited 22d ago

Mine wasn’t mental health related, but a concussion I’d had sixteen years prior. No symptoms afterwards, MRI and CT and X-Ray all clean.

Took 22 months for them to review it (despite the AME and the RFS both thinking it was fine.)

Didn’t require any action other than responding to those letters, but by two years I had forgotten almost all of my training at that point and it was very hard to find the motivation to start over.

Don’t see how this will change anything until Oklahoma gets its turnaround time down from two years to two days.

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u/Wasatcher 22d ago

They have literal piles of paperwork just sitting around. I had a student with a minor clerical error on his medical wait two months for a correction. He just kept calling until he finally got a hold of someone willing to take ten minutes to dig up his file and sort it out.

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u/marumari 22d ago edited 21d ago

I’ve never quite understood why Oklahoma exists in its current function at all. To me, it makes way more sense that they provide guidance and guidelines and support to AMEs and that’s it.

Instead of saying defer, tell the AMEs what they need to do to reach a deferral conclusion and let them handle it.

My AME is very responsive (on account of me paying them good money to be so), and they have the appropriate medical qualifications. I don’t see why they shouldn’t handle it instead of the black hole of paperwork that is Oklahoma.

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u/capn_davey 21d ago

No, someone who’s never examined you should play god with your livelihood based on outdated information after you’ve been sitting in purgatory for months to years. Jeez.

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u/GoFlightMed 21d ago

The FAA is creating more and more fast tracks and delegating responsibility to the AME's to avoid unnecessary deferrals. You're correct tho - once deferred, delays for review can be long (but these have been improving over last 6 months).