Friday, August 19, 2005

My Doctor Never Mentioned

Note any surgical scars, tattoos or other marks. These may be useful for identification in aircraft accidents.

   -- From TP13312 Section 1

I ran across this gem in a manual instructing doctors who conduct qualifying medical examinations on pilots. Every year I submit myself to a medical examination designed to determine if there is any reason to believe that I might become medically incapacitated in flight. They keep stamping and initialing my form, so far. I've noticed the doctors asking 'friendly' questions about my job and home life, designed to ferret out sources of stress or mental imbalance. I've passed several different forms of hearing tests, including the one when I was supposed to answer a question whispered by a doctor with a difficult accent who was holding a sheet of paper over his mouth so I couldn't lipread. But I've never noticed a CAME inventorying my scars, tattoos and blemishes for some master database designed for disentangling my remains from my crewmates'. Lovely thought.

1 comment:

Oshawapilot said...

During my medical the CAME did indeed make note of my scars. I have a fairly signifigant one on the back of my upper neck from a cervical spinal fusion.

After I pointed out about another 4 scars on varying parts of my body from other minor surgeries, childhood injuries, and such, she started laughing and suggested that they won't have any trouble identifiying me if ever the need arises to use this method. :-)