I'm delighted to announce that Dr Sanjiv Sharma has joined CASA as an additional Senior Medical Officer. Dr Sharma brings excellent aviation medical skills to the role and will work alongside Dr Peter Clem and Dr Mike Seah.
Dr Clem has just had a paper on Parkinson's disease published in the June 2016 edition of Aerospace Medicine and Human Performance Journal. These projects are of great value in increasing our understanding as well as informing aeromedical assessments. Other developments include a new look at cardiovascular risk assessment, in particular the role of calcium scoring and CT angiography. We are also awaiting the results of a review of the risks post-stroke, which should be available at the end of this year.
CASA recently provided further face-to-face MRS training which was well received. Answers to some of the most common questions raised in these sessions are included below. Training opportunities continue, and it is good to have a steady flow of new DAMEs to support aviation locally and internationally. Have you thought about doing the Diploma/Masters in Aviation Medicine?
Finally, I am delighted to be able to take some annual leave and will be away for most of August 2016. Please contact AvMed by phone or email if we can help.
With best wishes
Michael
Problem mapping is a core medical task, not a clerical one. Its purpose is to identify the main medical issues for the applicant by building a problem list. This informs the current and future assessments. It's essential that this information is medically relevant and accurate.
In many cases, multiple findings can be mapped to a single problem, saving considerable time. If an applicant has had a heart attack for example, they might have findings for a hospital visit, elevated blood pressure, prescribed medication and another for the attack itself. You can map all of those findings to just the heart attack diagnosis.
Age-related tests such as ECGs or routine blood tests, will appear in the 'Unallocated Findings' list. If these tests are within acceptable limits, there will be no diagnosis and you can map any/all of these findings to, 'Screening-no abnormalities detected (finding)'. Search for 'NAD' in SNOMED.
Unlike the previous medical records system, the new MRS allows gathering of any information about changes to visual acuity or eye health. Even when the standard for binocular acuity is being met, recording values for each eye can provide early clinical information for the examiner. This may allow pre-emptive treatment, for example in keratoconus.
Applicants are required to enter their full medical history in MRS to the best of their knowledge. DAMEs can then consider an applicant's complete medical history during their examination, something that the old medical records system didn't allow. Significant medical matters have come to light as a result.
Improvements will continue to be made to MRS and we want to make sure you're confident with using new and existing functions.
In the next week, we will be sending you a request to complete a short survey about how we can best meet your training needs. Please take a moment to complete the five, simple questions. We will publish the results in the next DAME Newsletter.