Doctor challenges

[Vance]

I have been working at adjusting my life to fit my advancing years (74).

I never expected to last this long as my father died at 69 so I had planned to expire at 70.

I have recently spent a lot of time downsizing my expenditures so I don’t outlive my money.

My doctor recently died and the doctor selected by my health conglomerate to replace him is a 65 year old woman who has spent her entire career helping indigenous people (Indians) get old gracefully.

Perfect I thought, as I find I am often emotionally aligned with indigenous people.

I met her for the first time Monday and after some conversation about my file (I was pleased she had read it) she said; “ I am amazed they let you fly because you are blind in one eye, you have had a severe traumatic brain injury, and you are 74.”

I explained that a highly qualified neurologist had encouraged me to fly and the FAA carefully considered my application for a medical over two years creating a file that can be measured in pounds.

I spent the next day trying to find a doctor who had graduated from a good school as she had and would accept Medicare.

I was not successful so I wrote her a letter explaining how important I felt learning was to maintain my cognitive skills, how important passion was to maintain my happy attitude and how important regular exercise was to keep my heart and muscles working.

Flying and being a flight instructor requires me to continue to learn and I am regularly tested to see that I have retained my proficiency.

It adds order and purpose to my life.

It is something I love to do.

I love my wife and that too helps my attitude about new aches that occur with aging.

The idea of being a couch potato has no appeal for me and I have seen it destroy some friends and ruin some marriages who retired and didn’t have a hobby.

Hopefully I will be able to address this divergence of opinion successfully.

Fortunately my Basic Med doctor does not agree with her assessment and saw no reason to ground me during my last physical .

 

[Andino]

I was not successful so I wrote her a letter explaining how important I felt learning was to maintain my cognitive skills, how important passion was to maintain my happy attitude and how important regular exercise was to keep my heart and muscles working.

Flying and being a flight instructor requires me to continue to learn and I am regularly tested to see that I have retained my proficiency.

It adds order and purpose to my life.

It is something I love to do.

I love my wife and that too helps my attitude about new aches that occur with aging.

The idea of being a couch potato has no appeal for me and I have seen it destroy some friends and ruin some marriages who retired and didn’t have a hobby.

I applaud your resistance to the "couch potato" temptation. Nobody would wish to deny "order and purpose" to your life.

Yet, are you not perhaps already risking yourself and your students' lives? If not now, then at some point in the near future?

You may want to consider transitioning into an FAA Ground Instructor, which would still provide you the ongoing teaching, learning, and cognitive challenges you enjoy. And, you needn't remain a flight instructor to enjoy regular exercise.

You've had a good run, but at 74 it may be time to ponder some changes. Your new doctor may be trying to do you a favor.

 

[Sv.grainne]

I did not read into your post Vance that there were any issues with you continuing to fly. Did I miss something?

 

[Mayfield]

You've had a good run, but at 74 it may be time to ponder some changes. Your new doctor may be trying to do you a favor.

Vance, I'm so sorry you are on your last legs, washed up, worn out, obsolete, decrepit, done.

I guess you need to get a rocker to sit in while you wave your cane and croak "stay off my lawn" to the neighborhood urchins.

Pity.

Vance,
The above paragraph is humorous.

 

[Vance]

I did not read into your post Vance that there were any issues with you continuing to fly. Did I miss something?

No sir, my basic med doctor says I am good to go.
I have a doctor/CFI friend who called me up to let me know he would be happy to do my basic med.
There have not been any changes in my health since my last class two medical that would preclude me from getting another.

 

[Vance]

Vance, I'm so sorry you are on your last legs, washed up, worn out, obsolete, decrepit, done.

I guess you need to get a rocker to sit in while you wave your cane and croak "stay off my lawn" to the neighborhood urchins.

Pity.

Vance,
The above paragraph is humorous.

Thank you for the subtitle Mayfield; I felt it lacked an important element of humor.

 

[Vance]

I take my responsibilities as pilot in command and a flight instructor very seriously.

It is my observation that people age at very different rates and in different ways.

One of my flight instructor mentors is well into his 90s and I have yet to find him deficient in any way.

Based on her experience and advanced years I had hoped my new doctor would help me to recognize and adjust to my diminished capability.

It appears to me the doctor made her judgment based on age, monocular vision and the severity of my TBI rather than current tests or observation.

Based on her response I suspect she knows little about the qualifications and testing required to maintain a flight instructor certificate with the FAA.

I feel my cognitive decline would accelerate if I stopped learning and teaching.

Each time I fly or teach I asses my current capabilities.

None of my learners have been injured and I still have a 100% pass rate for the practical test so it would appear that I am doing a good job as a flight instructor.

I hope I will know when it is time to hang it up.

 

[Mayfield]

Thank you for the subtitle Mayfield; I felt it lacked an important element of humor.

Damn Vance. The only element it lacked was being funny.

 

[WaspAir]

Satire is what closes Saturday night.

George S. Kaufman

 

[okikuma]

I have been working at adjusting my life to fit my advancing years (74).

I never expected to last this long as my father died at 69 so I had planned to expire at 70.

I have recently spent a lot of time downsizing my expenditures so I don’t outlive my money.

My doctor recently died and the doctor selected by my health conglomerate to replace him is a 65 year old woman who has spent her entire career helping indigenous people (Indians) get old gracefully.

Perfect I thought, as I find I am often emotionally aligned with indigenous people.

I met her for the first time Monday and after some conversation about my file (I was pleased she had read it) she said; “ I am amazed they let you fly because you are blind in one eye, you have had a severe traumatic brain injury, and you are 74.”

I explained that a highly qualified neurologist had encouraged me to fly and the FAA carefully considered my application for a medical over two years creating a file that can be measured in pounds.

I spent the next day trying to find a doctor who had graduated from a good school as she had and would accept Medicare.

I was not successful so I wrote her a letter explaining how important I felt learning was to maintain my cognitive skills, how important passion was to maintain my happy attitude and how important regular exercise was to keep my heart and muscles working.

Flying and being a flight instructor requires me to continue to learn and I am regularly tested to see that I have retained my proficiency.

It adds order and purpose to my life.

It is something I love to do.

I love my wife and that too helps my attitude about new aches that occur with aging.

The idea of being a couch potato has no appeal for me and I have seen it destroy some friends and ruin some marriages who retired and didn’t have a hobby.

Hopefully I will be able to address this divergence of opinion successfully.

Fortunately my Basic Med doctor does not agree with her assessment and saw no reason to ground me during my last physical .

It is very unfortunate you were assigned to a very closed minded individual that is a physician. With that mindset, I wonder what preconceived, negative, stereotypical thoughts she possessed about her previous patients and how lucky they were to have her as their physician?

Vance, you are absolutely correct in the way you are dealing with your deficits. You don't live as a perpetual victim of circumstances. Keep doing what you are doing.

As you are well aware, you do possess the option of choosing a different primary care physician within the same medical group.

Wayne

 

[Vance]

It is very unfortunate you were assigned to a very closed minded individual that is a physician. With that mindset, I wonder what preconceived, negative, stereotypical thoughts she possessed about her previous patients and how lucky they were to have her as their physician?

Vance, you are absolutely correct in the way you are dealing with your deficits. You don't live as a perpetual victim of circumstances. Keep doing what you are doing.

As you are well aware, you do possess the option of choosing a different primary care physician within the same medical group.

Wayne

Assigned may be too strong a term. She is just taking over the dead doctors patient load and they made it clear I had a choice. No worries is what they kept saying when I expressed my frustration. Thank you Wayne, I am going to try to fix her first. Finding a better doctor may be a challenge. The people at the medical group are no help at all and they don't want me interviewing their doctors. I found one through an 85 year old doctor that I really like but she doesn't take Medicare. I have never been 74 before so I don't know what I will need from the doctor. Thank you for your friendship and support Wayne.

 

[Resasi]

Vance being a little older, and, like you, medically challenged, this change of Doctors is like life's perennial challenges, the constant flux of up and down that we are destined to face as part of our existence here and now.

You will face it with the fortitude and resilience you have displayed since you first appeared on this Forum... though I do believe that in earlier times there was a little less doubt about the positive aspects of life.

Look on the bright side of life.

 

[Vance]

Vance being a little older, and, like you, medically challenged, this change of Doctors is like life's perennial challenges, the constant flux of up and down that we are destined to face as part of our existence here and now.

You will face it with the fortitude and resilience you have displayed since you first appeared on this Forum... though I do believe that in earlier times there was a little less doubt about the positive aspects of life.

Look on the bright side of life.

Life treats me well Leigh, I never expected to last this long and have as few challenges as I do.
I imagined that getting old would be an unhappy time and instead I am likely happier than ever.
I spend a half hour each day being grateful and have yet to run out of things to be grateful for.
Having a friends like you is often a part of my gratitude.
I am proud to know you.

 

[Resasi]

Likewise Vance, you too are a special event in my life.

 

[Sv.grainne]

No sir, my basic med doctor says I am good to go.
I have a doctor/CFI friend who called me up to let me know he would be happy to do my basic med.
There have not been any changes in my health since my last class two medical that would preclude me from getting another.

Whew, that's a relief. I never signed on to bowing out. Age is relative and life is what you make it. I'll know when I can't deal with things. The last thing I need is a Doc telling me I can't do something. Especially when they don't know me!..

Bobby

 

[WaspAir]

Look at it this way - - you outlived your doctor, so you're probably doing something right!

 

[Aerofoam]

Just because they made it through med school doesn't mean they are good....

 

[Vance]

Just because they made it through med school doesn't mean they are good....

In 1980 I broke my ankle through the joint in a road racing side car mishap and I was told I would be in a wheel chair for a year and just take some pain pills and get some rest.

Instead I walked out of the doctor’s office in eight weeks and set a record on a 78 cubic inch Harley Davidson Sportster with a fairing on gasoline of 177.6 miles per hour two months later.

In 1995 the administrator of the hospital in Salt lake City who had declared me dead after crashing my Harley Davidson streamlined motorcycle at Bonneville at close to three hundred miles per hour told me in my exit interview that I would never stand unassisted, speak in complete sentences or do any complex tasks.

They told me to get used to it because brain cells don’t grow back.

I was never offered any rehab and learned to work around my limitations.

I found doctors who were supportive and convinced the FAA western region surgeon that I was fit for a class 2 medical.

Like the rest of humanity there are good doctors who are always learning and not so good doctors who think they have the answers.

 

[JEFF TIPTON]

It may be true that brain cells cannot be replaced, but the brain has a lot of them not being used. It probably is not easy for use to reprogram the brain, but it can be done with training and determination.

We will all one day hangup our wings, and hopefully it will be on our terms not someone else’s.

Give them hell!

 

[Andino]

Your first post seemed confusing, and not to just me, in that your flying and instructing was somehow in jeopardy because of your new doctor. Then you clarified with:

No sir, my basic med doctor says I am good to go.
I have a doctor/CFI friend who called me up to let me know he would be happy to do my basic med.
There have not been any changes in my health since my last class two medical that would preclude me from getting another.

So...what was the purpose of your thread at all? Your new doc is neither your AME nor your Basic Med doc, so her opinion has no bearing on your flying status, correct?

Beyond that he is your friend, I'm not familiar with the advantage of choosing a Basic Med doc over an AME?

I hope I will know when it is time to hang it up.

What are your criteria to inform you that it would be? Most gyro pilots are older, so this is a relevant topic.

No pilot can fly forever, and no CFI can instruct forever. The individual either calls it for themself, or has it called by another.

Humans do things generally for reasons of MICE:
Money, Ideology (includes love/passion), Coercion, Ego.
You seem to be flight instructing for 3 of the 4. Nothing wrong with that, though it to me betokens a natural resistance to "know when it is time to hang it up"...or accept being told such by another.

You've beat previous doctors' verdicts before, and you're naturally indignant about this new woman doctor's opinion. You're endeavouring to either replace or reform her, even though she is irrelevant to your flying status. She doesn't align with those who support you (your Basic Med doc, and forum friends), and that seems to offend you enough to post about it. Am I the only one to discern this?

I knew of a student pilot whose elderly CFI (no known current health issues) had a massive TIA a week before the PP-ASEL checkride, and died soon after having never regained consciousness. His stroke caused him to bodily stiffen up from head to toes, like a board. Had that happened in the cockpit, the rudder pedals would have been jammed up, which could have been disastrous during a crosswind landing by the student.

I hope that any elderly CFI would "call it" for themself early, vs. stretching out their career until some doctor at last called it for them. Anybody who waits for the doctor to do so has waited too long, and jeopardized student lives.

If it were me, I wouldn't use a "friend" as my AME or Basic Med doc, but a thorough doctor not emotionally favorable to signing me off. My phasing out plan would be:

1) cease flight instructing, yet still fly and with passengers​

2) cease flying with passengers, yet still fly alone​

3) cease flying alone, but go up with another pilot​

This is the opposite order of how we staged in to fly, and gracefully stages the pilot out. Bob Hoover quit aerobatics on his own (when he self-assessed his routines to no longer meet his high standards), and then quit flying on his own. He knew when to "hang it up" before having been told. That was the classy way to cap off a flying career, and he is immortal among us because he did so.

Few of us realize how thinly we may be cutting it. Just because we have beaten the odds many times before is no assurance of beating them one last time.