Who will carry the torch?

  • Thread starter Future HIMS candidate
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Future HIMS candidate

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DISCLAIMER: This post is not meant to be disrespectful. Age can be a sensitive issue and I'm sorry if I have approached this in an insensitive manner.

Dr. Bruce and Dr. Lou are both in their mid to late 60s based on google information. At some point both of these revered AME's will no longer be available as the "go-to" complex case doctors?

Does anyone know of an up and coming HIMS AME that deals in complex cases that is younger; say 40s or 50s?
 
Hopefully, by then, the third class medical will be a thing of the past. You folks needing medicals for flying careers, I wish you luck, but that is a situation I will never be in.
 
Already some VERY good companies who will get the work done without the drama.

And I agree with the third class and some MAJOR reform is needed on the medical side of the FAA
 
DISCLAIMER: This post is not meant to be disrespectful. Age can be a sensitive issue and I'm sorry if I have approached this in an insensitive manner.

Dr. Bruce and Dr. Lou are both in their mid to late 60s based on google information. At some point both of these revered AME's will no longer be available as the "go-to" complex case doctors?

Does anyone know of an up and coming HIMS AME that deals in complex cases that is younger; say 40s or 50s?
And this reply is not meant to be disrespectful to the younger generation, but we are on the verge of losing a massive amount of talent and experience in many many fields, with very few young people stepping up to fill the void. A friend of mine is reaching retirement age. He owns a plumbing repair business. Not only can he NOT find willing, capable young trainees, but nobody wants to buy his business. Same goes for an electrical contractor I know and several carpenters.

But we will have a great supply of very good video game programmers.
 
And this reply is not meant to be disrespectful to the younger generation, but we are on the verge of losing a massive amount of talent and experience in many many fields, with very few young people stepping up to fill the void. A friend of mine is reaching retirement age. He owns a plumbing repair business. Not only can he NOT find willing, capable young trainees, but nobody wants to buy his business. Same goes for an electrical contractor I know and several carpenters.

But we will have a great supply of very good video game programmers.

My 18-year-old niece, who attends a highly-respected university on a 75 percent scholarship, didn't know how to scramble an egg until this past summer. I kid you not.

Rich
 
My 18-year-old niece, who attends a highly-respected university on a 75 percent scholarship, didn't know how to scramble an egg until this past summer. I kid you not.

Rich
And I'll bet you taught her.
 
And this reply is not meant to be disrespectful to the younger generation, but we are on the verge of losing a massive amount of talent and experience in many many fields, with very few young people stepping up to fill the void. A friend of mine is reaching retirement age. He owns a plumbing repair business. Not only can he NOT find willing, capable young trainees, but nobody wants to buy his business. Same goes for an electrical contractor I know and several carpenters.

But we will have a great supply of very good video game programmers.
The free market will fix that problem. They’ll figure it out quick when they can make $500 an hour cleaning out a pipe. The niche market of faa medical consultation is a different story.
 
The free market will fix that problem. They’ll figure it out quick when they can make $500 an hour cleaning out a pipe. The niche market of faa medical consultation is a different story.

Doubt it. The education system has some really good marketing and a captive audience from k-12. Look at the kids trying to get into the trades vs getting a BS in BS.

Per the medical thing, lots of companies with FAA contacts etc out there, many targeted to working pilots but they’ll take a PPLs money just the same.
 
My 18-year-old niece, who attends a highly-respected university on a 75 percent scholarship, didn't know how to scramble an egg until this past summer. I kid you not.

Rich
I'll be even more impressed once you teach her how to unscramble an egg.
 
Dr. B and I have found the fountain of youth ... top secret thought!


Baloney. It’s no secret. It’s a popular historical site in St Augustine. I’ll buy you a few bottles next time I visit. Gotta keep you and Bruce alive and kickin’!

Besides, 60 is the new 40, right, doc? ;)
 
Well, for the time being, I'm having a ball doing what I do so "quit" is not on the horizon....Though there will be a sometime time.....for sure.

As one airman pointed out, "we're going down the river to the ocean, and that there was MEMPHIS that just went by...."
 
Interesting thread. Makes me think of A&P/IAs, although I haven't met a ton of them, I've never met one that wasn't under 60.
 
Interesting thread. Makes me think of A&P/IAs, although I haven't met a ton of them, I've never met one that wasn't under 60.
One of my IA's is almost exactly the same age as me, late 30s... There's definitely room for younger guys.
 
And this reply is not meant to be disrespectful to the younger generation, but we are on the verge of losing a massive amount of talent and experience in many many fields, with very few young people stepping up to fill the void. A friend of mine is reaching retirement age. He owns a plumbing repair business. Not only can he NOT find willing, capable young trainees, but nobody wants to buy his business. Same goes for an electrical contractor I know and several carpenters.

But we will have a great supply of very good video game programmers.

Same thing happening in the technical world. We design and manufacture high reliability hermetic electronic packaging, and we're having a hard time finding young engineers interested in learning these things. Likewise when I talk to our customers (mostly T1 defense contractors), they're having a really hard time finding people interested in designing satellites, radar systems, imaging systems, etc., and as the old seasoned pros retire, it hurts.
 
This is the dumbest thread on POA. Follow the money gents. If everyone leaves a needed profession, salaries go up until someone wants to do it. There are lots of books and we even have youtube. Folks will step up. If you can't hire anyone you're likely not paying enough.
 
This is the dumbest thread on POA. Follow the money gents. If everyone leaves a needed profession, salaries go up until someone wants to do it. There are lots of books and we even have youtube. Folks will step up. If you can't hire anyone you're likely not paying enough.

Well, maybe. I learned a long time ago that good technical people are not motivated by money. You can't abuse them, but given a comfortable range of compensation, they are much more driven by cool/fun things to work on and a good environment (often defined as good tools) to work in. They will take pay cuts to work in such a place.

If you pay enough you'll get somebody to work on it. But they may not be any good at it. There is a part of tech jobs (probably many jobs, but I'm sticking to tech because that's what I know) that requires actual talent-something inborn or learned so early you forgot learning it. Without that you can learn skills, but it's the difference between someone who can read music and mechanically put out the notes and a musician.

For many of these jobs, you really want someone with that talent.
John
 
Well, maybe. I learned a long time ago that good technical people are not motivated by money. You can't abuse them, but given a comfortable range of compensation, they are much more driven by cool/fun things to work on and a good environment (often defined as good tools) to work in. They will take pay cuts to work in such a place.

If you pay enough you'll get somebody to work on it. But they may not be any good at it. There is a part of tech jobs (probably many jobs, but I'm sticking to tech because that's what I know) that requires actual talent-something inborn or learned so early you forgot learning it. Without that you can learn skills, but it's the difference between someone who can read music and mechanically put out the notes and a musician.

For many of these jobs, you really want someone with that talent.
John
Yeah yeah yeah, your special profession lies outside the laws of Economics. You bet.
 
Yeah yeah yeah, your special profession lies outside the laws of Economics. You bet.

Thanks for the condescension. Spices up my morning coffee.

I've been hiring, motivating and keeping engineers fed and happy for 25 years. How many years have you been doing it?
 
This is the dumbest thread on POA. Follow the money gents. If everyone leaves a needed profession, salaries go up until someone wants to do it. There are lots of books and we even have youtube. Folks will step up. If you can't hire anyone you're likely not paying enough.
Great point in theory, and in most cases, I would defend you. I really would, and that is really rare. But in some cases, you just can't pay people enough to do a job they don't want to do and still be able to sell your product or service to anyone but the government, who will spend any amount of tax payer money. I'll bet those engineers that Bill is trying to hire are being offered quite nice salaries, but are taking jobs that pay less because of, well just because (of many reasons). In the case of the plumber how much would I have to pay you to clean **** out of toilet drains? And if I paid you that, then what would my customers say when I handed them the bill?
 
Well, maybe. I learned a long time ago that good technical people are not motivated by money. You can't abuse them, but given a comfortable range of compensation, they are much more driven by cool/fun things to work on and a good environment (often defined as good tools) to work in. They will take pay cuts to work in such a place.

And cool right now is to work for Google, Apple, Facebook, Tesla, etc. Not so much older established companies, although much of that is just appearance. I can tell you that the T1 defense and space companies do some extremely leading edge stuff, you just won't ever hear about it.
 
Great point in theory, and in most cases, I would defend you. I really would, and that is really rare. But in some cases, you just can't pay people enough to do a job they don't want to do and still be able to sell your product or service to anyone but the government, who will spend any amount of tax payer money. I'll bet those engineers that Bill is trying to hire are being offered quite nice salaries, but are taking jobs that pay less because of, well just because (of many reasons). In the case of the plumber how much would I have to pay you to clean **** out of toilet drains? And if I paid you that, then what would my customers say when I handed them the bill?
If you can't pay people enough to do the job your business is untenable and you need to do another. Simple Economics. Seems everyone loves Capitalism until becomes inconvenient.
 
Thanks for the condescension. Spices up my morning coffee.

I've been hiring, motivating and keeping engineers fed and happy for 25 years. How many years have you been doing it?


John, you both make valid points. And I've been "hiring, motivating and keeping engineers fed and happy" for 35 years myself.

What's missing in the discussion is the time element. Yes, market forces will eventually drive supply to meet demand, but the time needed to create the supply of practitioners in certain disciplines is much longer than what the market needs. Steingar's argument works well for unskilled and low-skilled labor, but it ignores the time required to create experienced professionals.

We're having trouble hiring seasoned power supply designers, for example. Analog and power circuit design left the undergrad curricula and moved into grad schools at most universities a couple of decades ago when the market demanded skills in microprocessor and programmable logic design.

Consequently, today there's a real deficit of power designers with 10+ years of practical experience, and no matter what you do it's going to take 10 to 15 years for the market to respond and grow them. Retirements are happening faster than the demand side can respond. Meanwhile we're paying extra to bring in retirees, or to persuade people to delay retirement, while we try to catch up. Many of those folks aren't interested in returning to work at any price, even if they're still healthy enough.
 
This discussion ignores one basic fact, paying people more does not make them smarter, paying people more does not make them care more and paying people more does not make them more capable.

Dr Bruce is a tough act to follow for any doctor mainly due to his knowledge, dedication and desire to wade into the bureaucratic morass of a large government agency and advocate for individuals who need help. On top of that he shares his expertise in public forums freely. You can't stimulate that type of advocacy by paying more, it's innate in the person. It's a rare combination to have the ability to help at a super high level and the willingness to share that ability so enthusiastically.

Dr Lou is another example of someone willing to share his expertise freely, deal with the bureaucracy and help pilots navigate their way to certification.

There are a lot of good AMEs out there but these guys will be missed sorely when they decide to hang up their stethoscopes.
 
If you can't pay people enough to do the job your business is untenable and you need to do another. Simple Economics. Seems everyone loves Capitalism until becomes inconvenient.

It's not quite that simple.

I can offer a huge fortune for engineers who are able to design low-observable microwave conformal antennas for hypersonic applications, but since there are only about 5 people in the US qualified to do that, I probably won't be able to staff 10 open positions until we grow new ones, which takes at least a decade.
 
This discussion ignores one basic fact, paying people more does not make them smarter, paying people more does not make them care more and paying people more does not make them more capable.


Quite true. Considering what Bruce charged me, he could be considered his own NPO.

Unfortunately, such generosity, while noble and certainly appreciated, if too widespread can suppress the market and discourage new entries. I saw a situation in Haiti a few years ago where an extended presence from Doctor Without Borders, and their free care, actually drove a local paid clinic out of business. Then DWB left and there was a void.
 
It's not quite that simple.

I can offer a huge fortune for engineers who are able to design low-observable microwave conformal antennas for hypersonic applications, but since there are only about 5 people in the US qualified to do that, I probably won't be able to staff 10 open positions until we grow new ones, which takes at least a decade.
Yep. I work in jet engine design, manufacture, and certification, and certain specialities have such a small pool of qualified individuals that all of the competitors know them by name [I used to live next door to one of the engineers; I accidently got a letter from one of those competitors addressed to him. He told me it was a solicitation.] I knew of one engineer who was rumored to be making about what a senior Delta captain was making; he's since retired, and nobody has quite figured out if he's been properly replaced.
 
If you can't pay people enough to do the job your business is untenable and you need to do another. Simple Economics. Seems everyone loves Capitalism until becomes inconvenient.

That’s a good academic discussion in a classroom. What’s happens is that when implemented, it becomes messy and nuanced with value decisions being applied on both sides of the transaction.

For example, a 4% ROI in the septic tank business isn’t enough to make me want to do it. Neither would a 25% ROI. Why? It’s an ever shrinking customer base in places I want to live.

But those customers still need their tanks pumped occasionally and somebody is either scaling to do it or barely making a living in the margin.
 
That’s a good academic discussion in a classroom. What’s happens is that when implemented, it becomes messy and nuanced with value decisions being applied on both sides of the transaction.

For example, a 4% ROI in the septic tank business isn’t enough to make me want to do it. Neither would a 25% ROI. Why? It’s an ever shrinking customer base in places I want to live.

But those customers still need their tanks pumped occasionally and somebody is either scaling to do it or barely making a living in the margin.

Or those people pay whatever it takes to get their tanks pumped, replace them with septic hookups or move to where there are septic hookups. But it's not instant.
 
Baloney. It’s no secret. It’s a popular historical site in St Augustine. I’ll buy you a few bottles next time I visit. Gotta keep you and Bruce alive and kickin’!

Besides, 60 is the new 40, right, doc? ;)


errr ... right!
 
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