Am J Psychiatry 1980; 137:956-959
Copyright © 1980 by American Psychiatric Association
The psychiatrist's role in aerospace operations
WH Sledge and JA Boydstun
This paper presents two unique aspects of aerospace psychiatry: the
influence of the specialized stressors and occupational requirements of an
aviation career and the ambiguous role of the aerospace psychiatrist.
Aerospace psychiatrists have multiple, sometimes conflicting,
responsibilities to the organization and society (the social control task)
and to the individual aviator (the humanistic and medical tasks). In the
two case reports below the authors describe airmen who had vasovagal
syncope and how the psychiatrist intervened and resolved these conflicting
tasks.
