Air crew psychological issues under the microscope at Abu Dhabi aviation health conference

Keynote speakers included Mr. Ismail Mohammed Al Balooshi, (pictured right) assistant director general aviation safety affairs and Dr Nadia Al Bastaki, VP medical services, Etihad Airways.
“The GCAA has taken the initiative to organize such conference to highlight the critical health conditions that may be prevented if operators anticipate those medical scenarios and follow evidence based approach in addressing theses occupational risk cases to reach an acceptable level of safety,” said Saif Al Suwaidi. GCAA’s director general.
Discussions on the panel shed the light on this discipline of medicine which deals with physical and psychological effects and consequences of aviation on crew members. Organizers and attendees aimed at discovering and preventing various health conditions encountered in the aerospace environment. Problems could range from life understanding psychological issues to the importance of psychometric testing.
Al Balooshi said: “This conference provides the theoretical and practical guide to the assessment, management, treatment and care of the psychology health for air crew; covering a range of relevant topics for professionals working in the airline industry.”
During the conference, professionals from various fields of aviation medicine discussed how to address health issues starting from the diagnosis to the treatment and most important of all how to prevent these health conditions from occurrence in the first place. Emphasis was put on the importance of continuous monitoring of aircrew health in a periodic and systematic approach.
This conference is the first regionally to address psychological health in the aviation industry and its related issues, and the first to gather a huge number of aeromedical professionals under the same roof.
The GCAA said it will take this opportunity to “enhance the current system, and will expand scope of the assessment and evaluation on periodic basis in an attempt to identify propensity of the candidates to develop any psychiatric problem in the coming future and manage the cases on appropriate time to retain the professional people within their job on long term whenever possible.”
The event was organized by the licensing and aeromedical department at the GCAA, was sponsored by Etihad Airways, and held at the Radisson Blu Yas island, Abu Dhabi.