A flight surgeon is a military medical officer practicing in the clinical field of aviation medicine, which is also occasionally known as flight surgery.
A g-suit, or anti-g suit, is a flight suit worn by aviators and astronauts who are subject to high levels of acceleration force (g). It is designed to prevent a black-out and g-LOC caused by the blood pooling in the lower part of the body when under acceleration, thus depriving the brain of blood. Black-out and g-LOC have caused a number of fatal aircraft accidents.
Barotrauma is physical damage to body tissues caused by a difference in pressure between a gas space inside, or in contact with, the body and the surrounding gas or liquid. The initial damage is usually due to over-stretching the tissues in tension or shear, either directly by an expansion of the gas in the closed space or by pressure difference hydrostatically transmitted through the tissue. Tissue rupture may be complicated by the introduction of gas into the local tissue or circulation through the initial trauma site, which can cause blockage of circulation at distant sites or interfere with the normal function of an organ by its presence. The term is usually applied when the gas volume involved already exists prior to decompression. Barotrama can occur during both compression and decompression events.
To assume a brace position or crash position is an instruction that can be given to prepare for a crash, such as on an aircraft; the instruction to "Brace for impact!" or "Brace! Brace!" is often given if the aircraft must make an emergency landing on land or water. There are many different ways to adopt the brace position, with many countries adopting their own version based on research performed by their own aviation authority or that of other countries. The most common in passenger airliners being the forward-facing seat version, in which the person bracing places their head against or as close as possible to the surface it is likely to strike, placing their feet firmly on the floor, and their hands either on their head or the seat in front.
Airsickness is a specific form of motion sickness which is induced by air travel and is considered a normal response in healthy individuals. Airsickness occurs when the central nervous system receives conflicting messages from the body affecting balance and equilibrium. Whereas commercial airline passengers may simply feel poorly, the effect of airsickness on military aircrew may lead to a decrement in performance and adversely affect the mission.
An Aviation Medical Examiner or Aero-medical Examiner (AME) is a physician designated by the national aviation authority and given the authority to perform flight physical examinations and issue aviation medical certificates. AMEs are practitioners of aviation medicine, although most are also qualified in other medical specialties.
Aerosinusitis, also called barosinusitis, sinus squeeze or sinus barotrauma is a painful inflammation and sometimes bleeding of the membrane of the paranasal sinus cavities, normally the frontal sinus. It is caused by a difference in air pressures inside and outside the cavities.
A hypobaric chamber, or altitude chamber, is a chamber used during aerospace or high terrestrial altitude research or training to simulate the effects of high altitude on the human body, especially hypoxia and hypobaria. Some chambers also control for temperature and relative humidity.
The Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA) is the largest professional organization in the fields of aviation, space, and environmental medicine. The AsMA membership includes aerospace and hyperbaric medical specialists, scientists, flight nurses, physiologists, and researchers from all over the world.
Barodontalgia, commonly known as tooth squeeze, is a pain in a tooth caused by a change in ambient pressure. The pain usually ceases at return to the original pressure. Dental barotrauma is a condition in which such changes in ambient pressure cause damage to the dentition.
In aviation medicine, the 1% rule is a risk threshold that is applied to the medical fitness of pilots. The 1% rule states that a 1% per annum risk of medical incapacitation is the threshold between acceptable and unacceptable. In other words:
Applying this 1 percent rule would result in an airline pilot being denied a medical certificate if their risk of a medical incapacitation was determined as being greater than 1% during the year.
Fatigue is a major human factors issue in aviation safety. The Fatigue Avoidance Scheduling Tool (FAST) was developed by the United States Air Force in 2000–2001 to address the problem of aircrew fatigue in aircrew flight scheduling. FAST is a Windows program that allows scientists, planners and schedulers to quantify the effects of various work-rest schedules on human performance. It allows work and sleep data entry in graphic, symbolic (grid) and text formats. The graphic input-output display shows cognitive performance effectiveness as a function of time. An upper green area on the graph ends at the time for normal sleep, 90% effectiveness. The goal of the planner or scheduler is to keep performance effectiveness at or above 90% by manipulating the timing and lengths of work and rest periods. A work schedule is entered as red bands on the time line. Sleep periods are entered as blue bands across the time line, below the red bands.
The RAF Centre of Aviation Medicine is a medical organisation run by the Royal Air Force and based at RAF Henlow in Bedfordshire. It is the main organisation conducting aviation medicine research in the UK.
Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center is a regional office of the United States Federal Aviation Administration on the grounds of Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. With around 7,500 direct federal employees, the Aeronautical Center is one of the Department of Transportation's largest facilities outside the Washington, DC area, and one of the 10 largest employers in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. It is named for Senator Mike Monroney of Oklahoma, who wrote and sponsored the Federal Aviation Act of 1958.
Air medical services are the use of aircraft, including both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to provide various kinds of medical care, especially prehospital, emergency and critical care to patients during aeromedical evacuation and rescue operations.
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) is the medical certification, education, research, and occupational medicine wing of the Office of Aerospace Medicine (AAM) under the auspices of the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Aviation Safety. The Institute's primary goal is to enhance aviation safety.
The United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) is the United States Air Force (USAF) organization focused on education, research, and operational consultation in aerospace and operational medicine. USAFSAM was founded in 1918 to conduct research into the medical and physiologic domains related to human flight, and as a school for medical officers trained to support military aviation operations, later coined as flight surgeons. The school supported early military aviation from World War I through the evolution of aviation and into the modern era. USAFSAM conducted medical research and provided medical support for the initial US space operations beginning in 1947 through the establishment of NASA in 1958. After the creation of NASA, USAFSAM continued to actively support civilian and military manned space missions through clinical and physiologic research. USAFSAM is one of the oldest continually operating school for flight surgeons and other operational medical personnel of its kind in the world. USAFSAM is located in Dayton, Ohio at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and is part of the 711th Human Performance Wing and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
The International Board for Research into Aircraft Crash Events (IBRACE) was founded on 21 November 2016 by a group of subject-matter experts in aviation, engineering, clinical medicine, and human factors. These experts are associated with organizations that include the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, USA (CAMI); Cranfield University, England; GRM Consulting Ltd., England; Spire Liverpool Hospital, England; TÜV Rheinland, Germany; the University of Calgary, Canada; the University of Nottingham, England; and Wonkwang University, Korea.
Alan M. Steinman is an American physician, retired U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps rear admiral, who served with the U.S. Coast Guard for the majority of his commissioned corps career. His final assignment was serving as the Coast Guard's chief medical officer. Steinman is expert in sea survival, hypothermia and drowning, and an advocate for the open service of LGBT people in the U.S. military.
Captain (Dr.) Julian Ward, MD was an American physician who made contributions to aerospace medicine and the Mercury space program.
