Flight Surgeon

A flight surgeon is a military medical officer assigned to duties in the clinical field variously known as aviation medicine, aerospace medicine, or flight medicine. Although the term "flight surgery" is considered improper, it may occasionally be encountered.

Flight surgeons are medical doctors, either MDs or DOs, who are primarily responsible for the medical evaluation, certification and treatment of military aviation personnel — e.g., pilots, Naval Flight Officers, navigators/Combat Systems Officers, astronauts, air traffic controllers, UAV operators and other aircrew members, both officer and enlisted. They perform routine, periodic medical examinations ("flight physicals") of these personnel, as well as initially examine/treat these personnel when ill or following an aircraft mishap.

In the U.S military, flight surgeons are trained to fill general public health and occupational and preventive medicine roles, and are only infrequently "surgeons" in an operating theater sense. Flight surgeons are typically on flight status (i.e., they log flight hours), but are not required to be rated or licensed pilots. They may be called upon to provide medical consultation as members of an investigation board into a military or NASA aviation or spaceflight mishap. Occasionally, they may serve to provide in-flight care to patients being evacuated via aeromedical evacuation, either fixed wing or rotary wing.

The civilian equivalent of the flight surgeon is the Aviation Medical Examiner (AME). Some civilian AMEs have training similar to that of military flight surgeons, and some are either retired military flight surgeons or actively serving flight surgeons in a military Reserve Component.