pvermilyea1

The FAA came back recently with a letter asking my son for 2 more things: 1) An MD psychiatrist evaluation to review his entire medical history, 2) A letter from his flight instructor asking for an evaluation of my son's emergency procedures handling skill, ability to communicate with the tower, and manage controls, etc.
I got the instructor's letter all set (all good there) and now need to cough up an additional $2,500 for a psychiatrist evaluation next month to confirm what the neuropsych test found earlier this summer- no diagnosable conditions.
In case anyone is following this thread and wants to know the costs of all this: So far I think we will be in about $6,000 to (hopefully) get medical clearance, plus LeftSeat fees. But I don't think I'll be using them further. I contacted Dr. Bruce and have started working with him now. He has been super responsive to emails so far.
So I guess that's good news that the FAA didn't deny him, right? I think I'm going to have to sell off one of my cars to pay for this stuff. Ah, the things we do for our kids, right? lol

pvermilyea1

Back in April, my 17 year old son submitted his request for medical clearance with the FAA. Finally yesterday, after 9 months, and spending over $7,000 in doctors visits to clear up several erroneous mental health diagnoses given to my son as a kid, (all due to a limited medical condition) the FAA approved him for his 3rd class certificate after a medical flight test. Woo Hoo! I just wanted to let people know the success story and it is possible to work through all of this.
The check flight with the FAA is to make sure his vision is sufficient, but that shouldn't be too big of a deal since his vision is perfect in one of his eyes.
This was a long road, but was well worth the time and money!

By the way, i stopped working with Pilot Medical Solutions half way through all of this- getting help from them frustrating- kind of like trying to get a teenager to do chores. Ha ha. I contacted Dr. Bruce Chien and he was great. He responded quickly to emails and helped walk us through this long process and gave us very specific recommendations. He didn't give us false hope (he said at first it was very unlikely he would get an approval), and is a straight-shooter. He really knows his stuff.
This was the best Christmas present ever for my son! And now my wife and I can start dreaming of all the places our son can fly us someday.

rated

My son just got his medical back through Pilot Medical Solutions in Oklahoma City. We found the website first. This gave us more information than anyone else had provided at that point. We decided it was better to hire the leftseat.com's staff once we hear the horror stories about other pilots who were outright rejected after waiting for months without a response from the FAA. It didn't happen over night but once several things were corrected in our medical records, our Pilot Medical case manager called to tell us my son was certified. We are very grateful for speed and expertise which Pilot Medical delivered.