Membership Services
Fly Well at Summit
By reading this you have defined yourself as an early adopter, one of the first to subscribe to the AOPA Medical Services Plan. So I hope you attended Summit, in Long Beach, California in November. If you did, you saw that each day began with a special forum dedicated to our special interest – staying alive, healthy and flying for as long as possible! Come to think of it, this should be everyone’s “special interest!”
If you did not attend you missed three sessions: “A healthy body and mind” that focused on steps you can take to head off common killers; “Cockpit Health” which addressed medical emergencies and protocols to stay well while flying and “Paper or Plastic?” that was aimed at the issues that prevent pilots securing the piece of paper, the medical certificate, that prevents one using the plastic, our beloved pilot license.
I had the honor of hosting each session and rather than a didactic lecture, we aimed for rather more the Johnny Carson kind of feel. Continuing that analogy, Gary Crump, AOPA’s Director of Medical Certification played Ed McMahon and we had a fabulous collection of special guests including experts on heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea – a silent killer that comparatively few know about, colon cancer, fitness and many other topics. Our guests included our colleagues from the Air Safety Foundation, folks from NASA, for if anyone knows something about staying well, they surely do and Mike Torchia, AOPA’s friend from the world of fitness training.
I am going to be covering some of the material we addressed in future Fly Well columns in AOPA Pilot and if you have any general questions about these, or any other topic you would like to see me cover, please do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail (jonathan.sackier@aopa.org).
Additionally, Gary and I hosted a dinner at AOPA Dine-Around on the Thursday night of Summit. If we receive good feedback on this event we shall look for other such opportunities to get up close and personal with our fellow members to discuss your health and wellness concerns.
November 3, 2010
