• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

Prior Surgeries

Ehoward10

New Member
Hi everyone,
I was hoping someone would be able to enlighten me with regards to NAMI's policies on prior surgeries. I am concerned that even if I am cleared by MEPS that the issues I have will be a red flag to NAMI and I will ultimately get the whammy after going through the whole OCS process, especially with how thoroughly NAMI has been weeding out candidates recently.

My personal situation is that I am a collegiate sprinter and due to the vigorous nature of my sport I have had many injuries. I have had 2 sports hernia surgeries, one on the left and one on the right. These are similar to regular hernias in location but are simply a tearing of abdominal muscles without the presence of a bulge. In addition to the two sports hernias, I had a second surgery on my left side to remove scar tissue that was causing complications. I also had a meniscus repair on my right knee, which seems to be a common enough surgery and one that is waiverable. I am now fully healthy and all of these surgeries took place 1-5 years ago. I have no permanent side effects and I even ran a new school record in the 60m dash a few weeks ago. I would find it shocking if any of these issues were found to be disqualifying, considering that they are all things that have no permanent effect on my physical capabilities.

I also got Lasik in December and am on a prescription for Dymista for seasonal allergies. I probably don't necessarily need to be on this specific medication, but I do need a nasal spray for my allergies.

Judging from what my recruiter is saying, all of these seem to be waiverable conditions. I am concerned, however, that the amount of surgeries I have undergone will make me the first to get weeded out when NAMI starts taking a thorough look. No deficiencies would show up on a physical examination and my doctors would be more than happy to testify to my current health, but I don't know if that will be enough. If any of you has any experience with making it past the flight physicals with prior surgeries I'd like to hear from you about it. Also if anyone knows what criteria NAMI uses to determine if someone is not fit for aviation it would be great to hear. I realize you guys aren't a part of NAMI but any insight from people who have been through the process would be huge to put my fears of getting the whammy at rest, or to make me realize that I don't have a chance.

Thanks
 
Top