exNavyOffRec
Well-Known Member
a month? in over three years I never had a turn around time over a week unless additional info was needed, your recruiter should have MEDWAIVE checked.
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The Doctor is in! Ask a Flight Surgeon!
- Thread starter FlightMD
- Start date
a month? in over three years I never had a turn around time over a week unless additional info was needed, your recruiter should have MEDWAIVE checked.
exNavyOffRec
Well-Known Member
Anytime something additional is added the time resets and the clock doesn't start until the next morning, so if the documents are submitted at 8am on Wednesday the clock doesn't start until start of working hours on Thursday.
John Strutt
New Member
Hi this is my first post on this site but I have been a long time lurker on the site due to the vast amounts of useful information that it has. I was hoping that someone with a bit of experience with this topic could help me out. I was recently selected SNA and am awaiting my official orders and final selection papers for OCS.
Anyway, I suppose I have two medical related questions. Firstly, my eyesight was qualifying for SNA (obviously) but just barely. Now I am pretty sure that it will deteriorate or at least fail me during NAMI due to the fact that I hear that NAMI is WAY harder and more thorough than any other exam that I will take. I guess my question is this. Assuming I make it through the OCS physical is there a time period that is acceptable for me to pursue PRK surgery? My vision is within the refractive limits and it would benefit me greatly. My recruiter told me that the Navy would pay for it if my vision got worse but that seems way to good to be true. Does anyone on this forum have any professional or personal experience with a situation like my own? (Sorry if this has already been discussed. I searched and got a bit of insight but not really anything specific to my question.)
Secondly, assuming that I don't pass my eye exam. Is it a one and done type of thing or can I retake? My vision seems to have good and bad days oddly enough. I have absolutly no problem with NFO. It was actually my first choice realistically, but my recruiter convinced me to try for pilot if my vision was good enough so I thought why not? Would I be considered for redesignation to NFO or would there be a chance that they just give me the boot from the Navy and I lose my hard earned comission? Just a ton of questions and uncertainty at this point in my life especially since I am giving up my teaching career to attempt to be a Naval Aviator/ Naval Flight Officer. Any guidance that you guys have for me would be great! This community has already helped me a lot. I hope to become a member of this awesome group of people.
Anyway, I suppose I have two medical related questions. Firstly, my eyesight was qualifying for SNA (obviously) but just barely. Now I am pretty sure that it will deteriorate or at least fail me during NAMI due to the fact that I hear that NAMI is WAY harder and more thorough than any other exam that I will take. I guess my question is this. Assuming I make it through the OCS physical is there a time period that is acceptable for me to pursue PRK surgery? My vision is within the refractive limits and it would benefit me greatly. My recruiter told me that the Navy would pay for it if my vision got worse but that seems way to good to be true. Does anyone on this forum have any professional or personal experience with a situation like my own? (Sorry if this has already been discussed. I searched and got a bit of insight but not really anything specific to my question.)
Secondly, assuming that I don't pass my eye exam. Is it a one and done type of thing or can I retake? My vision seems to have good and bad days oddly enough. I have absolutly no problem with NFO. It was actually my first choice realistically, but my recruiter convinced me to try for pilot if my vision was good enough so I thought why not? Would I be considered for redesignation to NFO or would there be a chance that they just give me the boot from the Navy and I lose my hard earned comission? Just a ton of questions and uncertainty at this point in my life especially since I am giving up my teaching career to attempt to be a Naval Aviator/ Naval Flight Officer. Any guidance that you guys have for me would be great! This community has already helped me a lot. I hope to become a member of this awesome group of people.
Cash1234
USMC Officer Candidate (NFO, PLC Juniors Complete)
I have a question for the Doc. and for the members. As a quick background, I've had numerous eye exams as a result of my PRK surgery from 2011 and have come up 20/20 every time and well within all SNA standards. Last year I was selected as a SNFO with the Marines. My OSO submitted a request on my behalf to switch from SNFO to SNA and we're waiting on the approval/denial. My OSO scheduled me to get my class 1 instead of class 2 flight physical, that way if the contract change was approved, I would be ahead of the game. Yesterday I had the first half of my class 1 flight physical at Andrews Air Force Base. I saw the eye doctor and went through the standard eye exam and again, my eyes came back as 20/20. They then had me hold a red lens over my left eye while the doctor held a single white light in front of me and asked how many lights I saw. As he moved it around from 3 to 6 to 9 to 12 o'clock, sometimes I saw one light and sometimes I saw two separate lights about a centimeter apart. The doctor then measured my eyes and it turns out that they, in his words, "move very, very slightly." He explained that my one eye compensated a little for the other but expressed that it was nothing to worry about so I believe him. At worst he said that the medical guys at Andrews would send me back to the optometrist again for re-evaluation. Just out of curiosity, how common is this result? The Doc said it was interesting that I sometimes saw 1 light and sometimes saw 2 making me think it wasn't too common. Has this happened to anyone on this forum who still went on to qualify with a class 1? Thanks for your replies.
jcj
Registered User
(disclaimer - not a flight surgeon - civilian surgeon & pilot, corpsman from a long time ago - but I know a lot about pneumothorax)
Spontaneous pneumothorax (collapse of the lung) usually happens because one has "blebs" in the lung that can rupture & release air into the chest cavity, collapsing the lung. The first episode will probably be treated by putting a tube in the chest cavity for a few days. This type of pneumothorax is prone to recur if one has more blebs, and in the civilian world one is grounded until surgical correction if you have a second episode because a pneumothorax can cause sudden incapacitation, particularly in flight. I am guessing the military standard is even more stringent. But the good news is it sounds like you don't have this (but it sounds like this might be what NPQ'd NavyOffRec's other candidate).
Traumatic pneumothorax is very different. It's also usually treated with a tube in the chest cavity for a few days, but it is unlikely to recur if there is normal recovery from the injury and no pre-existing disease of the lung - which I am sure is why it's shown as not CD after a 1 year wait. With yours being four years ago and a normal workup, I don't understand why you would have been DQ'd. If there is something you don't know about that is a problem, it's most likely on the chest xray. But IMO you shouldn't give up on this. It seems to me that (assuming there isn't missing information you don't know about) you may have been DQ'd in error. If the DQ stands, I would think a waiver would be very possible (again assuming there isn't missing information you don't know about). Spontaneous pneumothorax (especially recurrent) is a serious aeromedical hazard, a well healed traumatic pneumothorax in an otherwise healthy person usually isn't. good luck.
Sir,
Thank you for your encouraging words! I was finally able to submit my physical for reconsideration on Monday in hopes of it being a simple mistake. My case was just as you described, simple treatment of a traumatic pneumothorax with a chest tube for a couple days, followed by a "complication free" recovery.
jcj
Registered User
thank you. over on baseops there's a discussion going on about the USAF's < 39" waist measurement requirement. I told them I could help anyone who needed to get under 39", they just needed some time to heal up before they got tapedDoc, Flight Surgeon or not... your medical input & advice is highly valued, and appreciated here on AW. We are very fortunate to have your contributions to all the forums.
BzB
jcj
Registered User
Good luck to you. If you are DQ'd again, look first to see if there's something in the interpretation of your recent chest x-rays that would be an issue. If there is a problem, that's where they're most likely seeing it.
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Ah, the lovely 39" crap, regardless of your size. Really screws you if you are 6'5" and not built like a scare crow.
(primary reason I'm not flying in the guard.. I meet bodyfat. I'm never going to meet 39")
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(primary reason I'm not flying in the guard.. I meet bodyfat. I'm never going to meet 39")
Sent from a van down by the river via Tapatalk
Would that be called a "massive invasive surgical liposuction" requiring 30 staples to close? I read about that USAF COL with a perfect record...fired from his CO position for blowing a 41 " inch beltline. Gotta' be a better solution to solve that problem, no?thank you. over on baseops there's a discussion going on about the USAF's < 39" waist measurement requirement. I told them I could help anyone who needed to get under 39", they just needed some time to heal up before they got taped
BzB
USAF_WX2USN
Active Member
It's crazy the differences in AF vs. navy body fat standards. As a female in the Air Force, I can have a waist up to 35.5" which is pretty damn fat. While when I was applying for the navy, I had to make either 170lbs (5'8") or 33% BF, which based in my body frame required a 32" waist max. But the PRT standards for the Navy are lower (and there is two mins, rather than 1 min for push-up/sit-ups) than the AF for a passing score.
USAF_WX2USN
Active Member
Also, the waist measurement is worth 20pts of our total 100pt test. It was worth 30pts up to about 3-4yrs ago.
exNavyOffRec
Well-Known Member
Have you seen how many people in the USN are done with push up and situps after 1 minute?
I don't think we really needed those 2 minutes.Would that be called a "massive invasive surgical liposuction" requiring 30 staples to close? I read about that USAF COL with a perfect record...fired from his CO position for blowing a 41 " inch beltline. Gotta' be a better solution to solve that problem, no?
BzB
That is our normal. Since 90% of the USAF supports either flying or special operations, you have people making the decision that the PT test is a career ender instead of what is important. Couple that with people who have been in "professional military education" since E5 that have lost sight of what the USAF's real job is, and you have the results we have. It is to the point that you could suck ass at your job, get DQd from certifications etc... but as long as your PT record is clean, and you spend more time bobbing on the volunteerism dong, you are still golden. I have seen countless numbers of go-to dudes get the boot because of the 39" waist rule. Some of them couldn't do shit about it regardless of how hard they tried because of height or race. On dude who got the boot was Samoan. I watched him knock out 78 pushups in a minute on a PT test without stopping. He had to get his uniform tailored because his biceps and chest were too big for the largest male size.
The CMSAF is doing a 6 month study on the validity of the waist measurement. According to him it doesn't target the dangerous fat. He said just because an Asian man had a small waist, he is more likely to store deadly fat behind it and black men aren't built like white men. If no result is found in that 6 month study, oh well and we stay with what we have. If results are found but too hard to adjust the test around, oh well and we stay with what we have. To me it is a little funny because he specifically highlighted black and Asian men having unfair results based on race and body type. I think that is a valid assumption (the reason why I mentioned one of the guys who got booted was Samoan). I, honestly though, kinda think it is tied in to the whole "celebrate diversity and let's not offend anyone ever...... especially women because they are all victims" kick going on now in the USAF. If the racial body build differences actually mattered, and they really want change to avert screwing people who can't do shit about a genetically driven waist size, they would do whatever it took to implement the changes because of racial differences causing different body types. They would not say "oh well, screw it" if it is to hard.
That Col who got fired, is a tall man of I remember correctly.
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