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INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF MILITARY FLIGHT SURGEON PILOTS IAMFSP NEWSLETTER SUMMER 2002
Lt Col Cain, US Army Aeromedical
Research Laboratory, Attn MCMR UAD, PO Box 620577, Ft
Rucker, AL 36362-0577 |
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OFFICERS |
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President Vice
President Internet
Wizard Programme
Chair Newsletter Editor |
Pete Mapes Dwight Holland Harry Hoffman Paul Cain/Bob Banks |
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PRESIDENT'S
COLUMN
The IAMFSP
has had a completely satisfactory year thanks to superb work by the
membership. While it would be
incredibly space consuming to thank everyone who contributed, I must mention
Harry Hoffman who has worked diligently to keep the web page updated. He’ll continue in this capacity but could
use your assistance with submissions, photographs and other items of web
interest.
Paul Cain
has done an outstanding job as the Newsletter Editor and also did the lion’s
share of the work for our scientific panel that went so well at the annual
scientific meeting; he has volunteered to superintend next year’s effort. We’ve approved two panels for next year, the
first is our Current Operational Concerns Panel and the second, suggested by
Bob Banks, is an application of pilot physician know-how to the issues
surrounding amusement rides. The intent
is to publish the results of this effort.
Nothing like this has been attempted in the past that we know of, so put
on your thinking caps and let’s attack this issue from the standpoint of things
like; safe G limits for an unscreened population, mishap research, and
recommendations for cautions to riders.
It sounds like a great opportunity to contribute to public safety using
the knowledge we’ve gained in our specialized field.
All
abstract submissions to next year’s panel should be made on the AsMA website at
ASMA.ORG with e-mail copies to Paul Cain.
The deadline is 31 October 2002 so please work on getting things
together this summer so we can put together a very dynamic pair of panels.
Dwight
Holland has also been busy as your Vice President and President Elect. He helped with our panels and also put
together some other panels while transitioning the Secretary Treasurer duties
to Rawson Wood. As you saw from our
annual meeting, Rawson is on top of the Secretary Treasurer office and now
needs your help to make sure everyone’s dues are current. Due to expenses, we voted our first ever
dues increase in 14 years so dues are now $15/year. If you are in arrears, please get it sorted with Rawson. Dues owed from prior years are still payable
at the $10/year rate through 2001/2002.
ASMA
Council
For the
last year, IAMFSP has had a seat and a vote on the Council of AsMA and it has
been my great pleasure to represent you.
What follows is a brief overview of some of the issues faced by Council
and the stands I have taken on them.
Finance:
AsMA is operating in the black but this is tenuous. Our meetings subsidize our dues so if we
have a bad meeting we go into the red.
The home office operates annually at about $100,000 deficit. After this is taken into account, the
meetings over the last two years have allowed the organization to show a gain
of over $80,000 each year. We haven’t
dipped into the red since 1993, but a bad meeting could put us there in a
heartbeat. Since meeting attendance
largely relies on membership, with over half the membership present at any
given meeting, don’t let a non-member colleague get away without a sales pitch
to join AsMA. Each one of us values
this organization so it falls on each one of us to be ex officio members of the
membership committee and get out there to recruit. If you recruit three members of your own membership class or
higher in a year, your next year’s membership is free. Use the cards in each Aviation, Space
& Environmental Medicine and make sure you fill in your name as the
recruiter. Individuals who recruit or
renew using these cards also get an opportunity to compete in the drawing for a
free annual meeting.
The last
major finance issue is that the finance committee moved to payoff the mortgage
held on the corporate headquarters which has $415,000 outstanding at 7.99%
interest. We can do this because we
have $990,901 in cash and investments available. The Finance Committee feels, and I supported, this move, which
should leave us with adequate reserves and does away with a monthly liability
of $4,400 in mortgage payments.
The bottom
line is that after all assets and liabilities are considered, the net value of
your Association is $1,321,208.
Membership:
Membership increased from 3,138 to 3,293 over the last year. Some gains were made at the meeting as well
but these were not readily available to report at the time of this
writing. While we are a long way from
our peak of over 4,000 members, we are headed back in the right direction. AsMA is the members. The stronger our organisation, the greater
our voice.
Journal: Under Dr. Sarah Nunnelly’s able Editorship, and
with Sarah Price-Rubio’s able assistance, the Journal is moving to full online
submission and review with a target date of August 2002. The Sarah’s are doing a superb job of
getting out articles to reviewers and getting worthy articles published. Instructions to authors and submission
information may be found in the journal.
Keep those articles coming and if you’d like to volunteer to review,
please let the journal staff know.
Education
& Research: I have asked AsMA to investigate our
ability to provide CME for journal review much as the AMA does with JAMA. Council and Dr. Nunnelly have agreed that
investigation of this issue is warranted as an additional benefit to
members. Since not all members need
CME, a nominal fee might be charged for the service. Dan VanSyoc (New Education & Training Committee Chairman) has
this item for investigation.
Representation
& Advicacy: After the loss of life associated
with hypoxia in a Lear Jet a couple of years ago, the association has had a
resolution recommending hypoxia training for aircrew. The FAA and many other regulatory bodies around the world do not
currently require this. Since we many
people around the world become disabled, and some die, from aviation
decompression sickness, I proposed a resolution addressing recommending
treatment in this issue as well. Both
resolutions were approved and voted on by the membership at the Annual Business
meeting of AsMA during the Scientific Meeting.
Three resolutions were also brought forward to encourage the use of
introductory Aerospace Medicine/Aviation Medicine courses for medical school
students, the development of medical standards for space flight passengers, and
aviation medical training unit operation.
Look for a
new Medical Guidelines for Airline Passengers to be published as a Journal
Supplement this year. It has been 5
years since the original publication of this popular supplement and an update
of it has reached the final stages.
Awards: The Association still has some awards for which
it received no new nominations. Please,
please, please, take the time to recognize our outstanding members who deserve
this recognition by submitting nomination forms. In addition, those of you who have been active supporting the
organization or who have made significant achievements in aerospace/aviation
medicine need to contact a Fellow of the AsMA so you can be nominated for
Fellow. Eligibility requires seven years
membership in AsMA or two years service as an Associate Fellow. We are fortunate to have many Fellows in our
organization so if you would like to compete for Fellowship, please contact one
of us to shepherd your nomination.
San
Antonio Scientific Meeting - 2003: Col Ronnie Richardson, USAF will be
the arrangements chair for San Antonio.
If you are in the San Antonio area and would like to help, please let
him know. Romie is at USAFSAM. The Brooks operator number is (210) 536-1110
and the DSN is 240-1110. You can locate
him through that number.
Governance: Minor AsMA bylaws changes were proposed and
approved. An AsMA policy manual was
written and also approved. I believe
that both documents can be seen at the AsMA.Org website.
International
Activities: Continued to host the International
Reception. A third of AsMA’s membership
now resides outside of the United States.
*********************************************
Finally,
Thanks to all of you for continuing to support IAMFSP. This organization exists to serve you. If you have anything you’d like to
contribute of bring up for discussion, please let us know! Constituent status in AsMA has given us a
new voice and we are making good use of it.
Sincere
Best Regards,
Pete Mapes,
President, 2001-2003
VICE
PRESIDENT'S COLUMN
I have just
returned from a Safety Stand-down day at the Navy's Test Pilot School where I
heard some interesting talks. Two years ago we lost two crewmembers in a
T-38 mishap due to a thrust-deficient sink rate after a poorly flown
approach. The PIC had over 3,000 hours of flight time, and was a “good
stick”, the guy in back was an NFO with over 2,000 hours in TacAir.
Truly, a tragic mishap. No ejection was
attempted. The point is that any aircraft has the capability to kill/hurt
the aircrews we all fly with, and serve.
We must keep that in the forefront of our minds as we design flying
programs or curricula, and make the everyday decisions that affect our crews.
Think "Risk Mitigation" at all times.
On a
brighter note, I am very impressed by the Navy's resurgent Dual Designator
Program. According to the report given at AsMA, there are nearly 30 new
billets coded for Dual Designator status. We hope that several of these Navy
Dual Designators will step up and get involved with the in IAMFSP. I know Dr Harry Hoffman would be happy for a
WebWizard helper or two, and so if you want to get involved in IAMFSP in a key
role, please give Harry a call or drop him a note.
Fred Kelly
has written to me with a summary of some matters of history. Fred and I hope to
have a draft for the Blue Journal of IAMFSP's history within a year or
so. Please, get in touch with me or Fred Kelly (PO Box 2040;
Roseburg, OR 97470) if you want to add anything to the history of the
organization. Early meeting remembrances are particularly helpful!
On the program side for next year I suggest that we have not only the amusement
park ride sessions that we all agreed to at the Business Meeting in May, but
also run a session on each airframe/missions that we have Dual Designators
involved in. For example, we might have C-17 ops highlighted with Rawson
Wood/Byron Hepburn, KC-135's with Joel Erskin, B-1 ops with Bill Mueller, V-22
Flight Test with Jim Casler, P-3's with Ed Park, F-15 with Pete Demetry et al,
C-21 with Kevin O'Toole etc, plus a flight test talk or two thrown in for
good measure. Perhaps an aeromedical research program talk or two as
well. I see this running two sessions if we fully utilize our talent/personnel.
We did this at our first officially sponsored IAMFSP meeting in Nashville, TN
in 1986, and it was a very well attended meeting (it was my first and I was
very, very young then!). I will put this session together. If
anyone else is interested that wants to help out, please let me know by email
or phone (540) 819-0996.
The revised patch we adopted at the 2002 Business Meeting will cost 3.09 per
100. I propose that we run 100 in the first batch, and sell them to
members at 5.00 a crack. That way we get just a little profit to help out
our ops, but not excessively so. Any thoughts? Email the entire
group with your ideas. We could sell 3 for 12.00. I will bring them
to the next Business Meeting in San Antonio.
With regard to Business Meetings, AsMA HQ messed up getting our group into the
scientific program summary given out on-site for the 2nd year in a row.
They apologized profusely. I spoke to Russ Rayman (AsMA's Executive
Director) about this, and he said that he would be sure to personally take care
of us next year. Somebody at HQ just dropped the ball. They tell me
it will not happen again.
Congratulations to CDR Kris Belland for receiving the IAMFSP Plaque of
Appreciation. Kris did a great job for us as the program chair, and he
certainly deserved the recognition. I also want to thank the Awards
Committee of Past-Presidents: CAPT Dave Brown, Col Tom Travis, and Col Malcolm
Braithwaite for their work in selecting our IAMFSP-sponsored AsMA-wide Award
winner. We have done this for three years in a row now and our candidate
has won the targeted award EVERY year. Please, think of folks that may
not have been recognized recently, and lets submit them to AsMA by Dec 15th
deadline for the appropriate award.
Charter Member and former federal Air Surgeon CAPT Frank Austin (USN, ret)
called me just before the meeting and reminded me that he would not be at this
AsMA Meeting. It was the first one he has missed for health reasons in
his life. We certainly missed him and his sense of humour as big as
Texas. I passed on his good wishes to everyone and that reminds me that a
few on our leading members are getting "around the turn" as my
grandfather used to say. We have not lost one yet of which I am
aware. My point - we are where we are in IAMFSP and the Dual Designator
community because of these leaders.
Let's keep them in our thoughts, stay in touch, and turn in your written
thoughts on the earlier days when you guys can.
I would like to start a Fund for IAMFSP that might be considered an
"endowment." Given that we are having light dinners at our
meetings, and our costs are going up due to operations and awards, etc.
An endowment would help us to keep dues low in the long run, and after it is
built up to $5000-6000 dollars, the money market fund (probably) interest can
fund a lot of this. Let's discuss this more, but to get the ball rolling,
I'll put up the first $250 in an account here until we formally decide
this. Any other takers? Send me a check to: Dwight Holland, 4874
Glenbrook Dr, Roanoke, VA 24018.
We will have an "Honour Roll" of donors published in each
IAMFSP Newsletter.
As our stalwart member Dr Ben Kallner from Israel noted - "...we are not
social cases!" when our slight dues increase came up for a vote. My
goal with the proposed endowment is to stabilize our finances given our
increasing organizational responsibilities as a Constituent Society. Dr
Geff McCarthy has agreed to chair a committee to give us a report on developing
a plan as we discussed at the Annual Business Meeting. Hopefully Geff
will have some proposals to present to us in the next IAMFSP Newsletter as we
get closer to next year's Business Meeting.
Capt (Dr)
Dwight Holland, USAF (reserve)
Program
Manager, USAF Office of Scientific Research
Instructor,
Crew Systems, Navy Test Pilot School
SECRETARY/TREASURER
REPORT
IAMFSP
Annual Business Meeting Minutes, Montreal, Canada, May 2002
Meeting
called to order by Dr Peter Mapes, President, who gave his report and some
opening comments. Approximately 35
people attended for at least a few minutes, out of total membership of about
110 people.
Dr Dwight
Holland gave the Vice-President’s report, recognising the work of Dr Kris
Belland with plaque to be awarded to him for his efforts on behalf of the
organization.
Dr Rawson
Wood gave The Secretary/Treasurer’s report: $320 savings, $2787 in money
market, $90 checking.
Old
Business: 1) Dr McCarthy moved to
establish a finance committee to report on risk/benefit of investments,
financial goals of the organization, budget for food/drinks at meetings and
other financial concerns. Second by Dr
Braithwaite, and approved by a vote of unanimous minus one.
2) Dr.
Holland moved to increase dues to $15/year, which was seconded and approved
unanimously.
New
Business: 1) Dr
McCarthy encouraged the group to increase our impact across the world of
aerospace medicine, including AsMA committees, publications etc.
2) Dr Cain
opened discussion for next year’s panel.
Voting approved 2 topics: aeromedical applications outside of
aviation/human safety and tolerance of amusement park rides and also a panel on
the effects of glass cockpits on aviation performance and safety.
3)
International pilot-physician/dual-designator program updates:
1. USAF: program alive and well 17
active duty, 2 national guard members plus an active pipeline
2. USN: program alive and well. History of 3/decade, now averaging 10/year
in program.
3. Slovenia: program being developed
4. UK: 12 specialists in aviation
medicine, healthy mature program
5. Sweden: 3 active, 4 in pipeline
6. Israel: no formal program
Meeting was
closed, food and beverages enjoyed.
Savings $320.48
Money market $2782.86
Checking $135.03
Total $3238.37
Thanks,
Rawson Wood.
Maj, USAF,
MC, FS
C-17 Pilot
Physician
WEB WIZARD
REPORT
Folks, I’ll
start with a reminder that the IAMFSP website is located at this URL:
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/2265/
As of this
writing, the total number of visitors is 6,276.
The website
is very out-of-date. There are some
reasons for this beyond simple procrastination, however. For those of you familiar with FTP (File
Transfer Protocol), this has been the method I’ve used for updating the site
prior to recent changes at Yahoo/Geocities.
FTP updating – preferred because it allows editing of the site on the
author’s remote computer, then transferring it to the site – is no longer an
option with our ‘free’ Yahoo/Geocities page.
With the
decline in “dot.com” revenues, Yahoo/Geocities recently changed their structure
to offer several “paid” options for websites and curtail the features on the
free access level. “Free” site pages
must now be edited using a rudimentary online editor, which changes the basic
HTML code to a proprietary one, and is limited in capability.
The news is
not all bad: The “paid” option I’m
recommending to IAMFSP offers many features that were hitherto
unavailable. These options are listed
at this URL, and I’m recommending that we use the “Webmaster” paid access at
$11.95/month:
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info/c3.html?.refer=geohelp
The extra
features include 10 extra e-mail address, FTP access, site password protection
(which is a nice feature) and, our own domain name (ie: IAMFSP.com). The password protection is nice because it
would allow us to securely post our internal documents, address &
e-mail lists, etc. The minimum paid
access we need is the “Plus” level with FTP access at $4.95/month.
I’ll be discussing
these options with the Officers and we will keep you updated as decisions are
made. If you would like to input your
thoughts on this issue, please e-mail the membership via the IAMFSP group: IAMFSP@yahoogroups.com. Alternatively, e-mail me at my address: Doc@who.net
and I’ll pass your thoughts along to the appropriate parties.
That takes
me to my other topic: The e-mail group
(Yahoogroup). If you are not subscribed
to our e-mail group and would like to be, all you have to do is send a blank
e-mail (no subject line or message body necessary) from the account you want
affected to the following address:
IAMFSP-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Please
consider joining, supporting, and participating in our e-mail group! This is the best method we have for
accomplishing action items between IAMFSP/AsMA annual meetings. Best of all, it remains “free” for now.
I would
like to thank Dr. Kevin O’Toole for his kind (and much needed) offer to assist
with website duties. We are both in a
holding pattern, however, pending decisions on the level of Yahoo/Geocities
access IAMFSP decides upon. One option
is no website at all, but we do get a lot of public exposure from our little
site, so I urge everyone to support a website in some form.
I’d also
like to thank Dr Tom Travis for his role as co-moderator of the Yahoogroup for
the past several years and for his continuing responsiveness to messages
submitted via the website. With all of
his other responsibilities, however, Tom needs some relief. If anyone else has any experience or
inclination to assist with either the website or the Yahoogroup (or both),
please let me know. We could truly use
the help.
Best
Wishes,
Harry
Hoffman, MD, MPH
Sacramento/Tahoe
USA
Webmaster/Yahoogroup
Moderator
NEWS
BRITISH
ARMY
An update
from the British Army membership:
Malcolm
Braithwaite continues as “chief.” Had
his Apache flight just before Christmas last year and is making plans for the
other SAMs to undergo familiarisation training (when the conversion course has
been finalised).
Paul Cain
returns from Fort Rucker to Middle Wallop in Jan 03 to “change places” with
Mark Adams who takes up the US exchange post at USAARL, Fort Rucker.
Ian Curry,
although laid up for a while following an assault by our surgical colleagues is
now “back in business.”
Mike
Harrigan completed his training and sits the consultant approval board in
November – no problems anticipated!
Alaistair
Bushby takes a short break from the “coalface” to attend an academic course in
Occupational Medicine later this year.
Mark Rooms
has been learning how to be a staff officer, then enjoying a well-earned bit of
leave.
Giles
Austin and Lynne Walters are back on the pilot’s course after a pre-planned
“hold”, an aftermath of last year’s foot and mouth epidemic that restricted NOE
flying training.
We
successfully “poached” a doctor from the Royal Air Force – Claire Jackson who
has just started her pilot’s course – welcome aboard!
We are also
“starting some folk early” – Grant Wilde, who has just qualified as a doctor
successfully passed his aptitude tests and flying grading course – we hope to welcome
him into the SAM cadre in 5 years or so after his GP (family practice)
training!
Allison
Eke, although retired from the regular Army sticks with the team by looking
after our Territorial Army regiment.
She even managed to “swing” herself a refresher-flying course last month
(and is still “current”).
So – all in
all, we’re in pretty good shape and generally enjoying life.
Kind
regards to all,
Malcolm
Braithwaite
MEMBERS
Dr Marco Antonio Montenegro is a
retired Vice Admiral MC Brazilian Navy Pilot but still flies as a commercial,
IFR rated, multiengine pilot. His NFS
class in NAMI was 124, a long time ago!
A civilian pilot since 1958 when he soloed the legendary PT 19
Fairchild, he later became a Navy pilot (1971), primary as a Helicopter pilot
because at that time the Brazilian Navy was not allowed to fly fixed wing. It is now not a problem, as they are flying
the A-4 Skyhawk. He has been a member
of IAMFSP since 2 years ago, (he thinks
that was in Houston). Beside that he is
the Chief Surgeon in summertime in Brazil of a Italian Cruise Ship called
Rhapsody, where he spends 4 month each year since retirement. Believe or not, he still has the time to fly
around, continuing to logged flight time and adding to his total of about 8200
hours flight time. He survived in a
terrific crash in a twin engine, walked away “still breathing” and stating
“sailors have more fun". Contact
him at: montenegro@highway.com.br
David Kazdan is currently
appointed as an anaesthesiologist at University Hospitals of Cleveland (Ohio)
and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University. He is a diplomate of the American Board of
Anaesthesiology, an electrical engineer (SBEE Massachusetts Institute of
Technology '81, also SB Music MIT '81) and PhD biomedical engineer (Case
Western Reserve University '92). His
engineering interest is in quantitative and computational issues in
cardiopulmonary physiology and in automated drug delivery systems. The MD is University of Cincinnati '85. Postgraduate training was in internal
medicine, University of Michigan and anaesthesiology, University Hospitals of
Cleveland, 1995. He describes his flying
as limited to private pilot, instrument rated with nearly all of his time in Cessna
172s. His wife's name is Laura Gooch, a
civil engineer specializing in groundwater hydrology.
FINALLY
Well yet again I
am pleased to get to the end. The next
month will be busy with preparations for AsMA next year. With that in mind I will get the next
edition of the newsletter out around Christmas and hopefully update
everybody. Plans continue for panels at
AsMA so please keep in touch with those who are planning things or email me and
I will coordinate efforts.
The editorial
keyboard has been hard at work and you may find a bias towards English English
as opposed to American English. No
apologies, there is an “I” in IAMFSP!
Spelling mistakes other than that are all my own work.
Please send
newsletter submissions as a Word document attached to your email in Times New
Roman, 12 point and this will help speed things up at my end. Many thanks.
Paul Cain
Editor
Paul.Cain@se.amedd.army.mil
or elanapaul@aol.com
