Help please: Looking for information about Medical requirements in different countries

FAA (in an obligatory report to the US Congress) has recently stated their conclusion that the implementation of BasicMed has has no negative impact whatsoever on safety or accidents (surprise, surprise)

Which is even more telling when you understand that some fraction of those moving from 3rd class to BasicMed are doing so because to pass the 3rd Class they’d have extra hassles and extra testing on an extra frequent basis, i.e. special issuance annually, versus likely nothing extra required every four years. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, the deck is actually stacked against BasicMed but yet there is still no negative impact.

Elaborate medicals for private pilots add no value. It would be entirely appropriate for EASA to at least get rid of the EKG testing even if they didn’t eliminate the medical requirement entirely likely like the UK – which would be the fundamentally correct course.

Re Germany, their MED system has come up before.

You can read this – quite illuminating. And I don’t doubt that their CAA doesn’t want to relax anything, after Germanwings, especially as it is banned from requesting GP (family doctor) or “NHS” data. One German pilot, a good friend, told me that his German Class 1 is a “special” affair where he tells his AME absolutely nothing.

I also believe that this will turn up a post that Germany makes you do the CV test annually, and not once per life like others do. But this could be Class 1 only.

I think you have already found all the (few) interesting concessions. The UK ones are the biggest by far, along with France’s medical-free UL concession. That’s about it.

A recurring difficulty is that almost nobody wants to post anything critical of their own country, on an international forum. I see many people absolutely slag off their system in other places but they will never write it here

I’d say that using the FAA findings, and the UK findings (which also show zero statistically significant problems), together with the very visible near total elimination of GA in Spain (and Italy), leaving just the UL community which, frankly, can operate their misson profile largely under the radar, is the best way forward to get the Spanish CAA to move on this.

A study back on the 1990s showed that a resting ECG will only show anything significant if severe heart disease is already present, so is useless for preventative measures. A model based on the study went on to say that such ECGs as given by AMEs might save 1 life every 42 years.
Obviously NAAs think they know better, or to paraphrase “don’t let the facts get in the way of a good ban”.

Peter wrote:

I also believe that this will turn up a post that Germany makes you do the CV test annually, and not once per life like others do.

It seems like on the FAA system, it depends on your AME and most will do it every medical. I’ve only ever had one AME (Dr. Pilling in the Isle of Man, who unfortunately died of cancer a few years back) not do a CV test with every medical.

That is totally weird because it is not required, and neither it is required under JAA/EASA (hence the popularity of Hungary in the good old days, for the initial Class 1 ).

Also a large % fail the Isihara test, so what does the AME do then? Land you with a 3 digit priced lantern test?

so is useless for preventative measures

The AME’s job isn’t to maintain your health. He is purely an agent of the CAA, to check if you meet the criteria. And your GP isn’t that interested either; there you are Mr Bloggs, take these pills twice a day and come back if you feel crap again But actually that is all that most people want; they have no interest in being well long-term.

Of course there are good AMEs and bad AMEs… Most pilots would argue the best AME is one who does the absolute minimum.

Back on the topic, I am surprised to see the lack of comment from Germany