Path to ‘yes’

“So, I called Oklahoma City and said, ‘Is there anything I can do to help? I’m just a pilot that happens to fly with this gentleman.” Roth explained his medical background, and soon the FAA invited him to become an aviation medical examiner, he said. Some 25 years later, he is an airline transport pilot with 4,500 hours, a ground instructor for the Gulfstream G550, and has a practice dedicated to aviation medicine.

Unlike treating physicians who work with clients on individualized healthcare decisions, aerospace medicine focuses only on whether an applicant meets medical standards defined by the FAA. Roth describes AMEs as the FAA’s first line of defense evaluating pilots’ risk to the national airspace system; in most cases, they’re able to issue a medical certificate without further review, but about 6 percent of applications go through the special issuance process. That’s where an AME’s job gets more complicated.

To obtain a special issuance authorization, applicants submit medical information to the FAA and often receive requests for additional information. Those requests may sound like gobbledygook to an airman, Roth said, but to an AME the meaning is clear. AMEs help airmen gather the appropriate information, organize it to submit it in one complete docket, and ensure the submission answers all the FAA’s questions. For Roth, that means a lot of coordination with specialists and the FAA.

“For the complicated cases, you’ve really got to be on your game,” he said. Roth is a senior AME, which means he can issue first class medical certificates, and he’s one of only about 200 AMEs trained under the Human Intervention Motivation Study program to handle cases involving mental health conditions or substance dependence or abuse. He also reviews cases as an infectious disease consultant to the FAA’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute.

Although many doctors serve as AMEs part-time, Roth’s practice is dedicated to aerospace medicine. He said it’s not as profitable as private practice, but he’s driven by a lifelong passion for aviation.

“You don’t go into this for the money,” he said. “You do it for the love.” FT

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