Pilot - Release of Medical Information - Out of Canada Applicant

[Vell]

I was recently sent two forms that I was asked to fill before going to Canada for my medical/interview/CFAT and ACS. One is "Visual Acuity for Initial "Aircrew" and the other is "Request for Release of Medical Information (Pilot)".

My question is: Who do I get to fill out these form considering I am living in Japan. Can I bring the vision form to be filled out by any optometrist here? Is the information being asked for in the form common to all optometrist regardless of country? There is also a 'referred to' section on the paper, what do I put there?

For the medical information release, I don't know where to go or who to see about that. I have never had any serious health problems so I do not have a family doctor. I see a random doctor for yearly check-ups administered by the city I live in (always a different doctor). The closest thing to 'medical problems' I have had are sprains, flu, colds, and a throat infection... all standard stuff.

I tried searching these forums for instructions on what to do with these forms but perhaps I did not search for the correct terms. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Master Corporal Steven]

Good day,

Please reply to the email that you were sent with those forms attached with your medical question.

 

[Vell]

Thanks for the reply. The recruiters seem insanely busy so I thought I would try to ask here first.

I was figuring this might be something many applicants have had to do but I guess the answer is not solidly factual simple information that everyone knows since I got a similar response from http://www.reddit.com/r/CanadianForces today.

 

[Vell]

Well, now that I know the answer to this question I thought I would answer this myself in case anyone else is ever trying to figure out what these forms are and why you have them.

This applies to those who are applying as Pilot specifically from out of country. Under normal circumstances the CAF would call pilot applicants in for their CFAT and basic medical check before moving forward with the pilot application and scheduling the applicant to go to air crew selection. During the basic medical before air crew selection, you would them be given the forms for the blood work and eye exam (along with some of the fields on the form already filled) before being scheduled for ACS.

In the case of out of country applicants however, the CFAT, basic medical check, interview and ACS are all scheduled in the same week so that the applicant does not have to travel to the recruiting center multiple times. You are told to fill the eye exam forms and do your blood work / urinalysis before coming in even for the CFAT so that in the event that you are accepted to go to ACS, you already have your medical stuff done (which is a requirement for ACS). If you do not get accepted to try for ACS (like if your CFAT score is too low or you identify a medical condition that disqualifies you from pilot during the basic medical), the medical forms are not needed at all.

The eye forms can be filled out by any optometrist or ophthalmologist while the blood work and urinalysis can be done by any doctor, but preferably your family doctor. In my case I had more trouble filling the forms since they MUST be filled out in English using the CAF standards of measurement (so for example Japan uses a different scale for vision acuity than the CAF so I needed to find someone who could both fill out the form in English and was willing to provide test results in the format requested by the CAF... in the end it was just easier for me to go back to Canada a week early and have everything done there. It was very expensive though since even though I am Canadian, I am a non-resident thus am not covered by provincial health care even while I was paying Canadian income tax).