I'm a corporate pilot with a wavier due to sleep apnea. having cataract surgery on both eyes. need to have a 8500 form filled out by my (?? surgeon or my opthamologist after both eye are done). The problem I have is that I had a detached retina 3 years ago and never told anyone that I had it done. Now that I have to have cataract surgery and fill out 8500 form by the doctor it asked for history on any eye surgery. How will this effect me with my future medicals.
The form you need filled out is an 8500-7, which you can find here. Don't confuse this with the 8500-8 which is the regular medical application form. It should be filled out by the eye doctor who does the post-op examination, not necessarily the eye surgeon who did the procedure.
As to how tis will affect your application, the best person to answer that is Dr. Bruce Chien, whom you can reach either via his web site or on the AOPA Forums. He does not visit here at PoA.
As for the detached retina procedure done three years ago but never reported, you should discuss with Bruce how to handle that now. I expect that the post-op examination for the cataract surgery will be adequate to cover that, but Bruce is the expert on that. One thing for sure is that if the FAA discovers that surgery without you having reported it, it's going to affect your pilot certificate as well as your medical certificate -- see 14 CFR 61.59 about that. So, while it would have been best to report the detached retina procedure on your next medical after that procedure, it's better to report it now in conjunction with the cataract surgery with a "clean and green" post-op eye exam than to have them be surprised to discover it on their own.
"clean and green" is likely a reference to getting a doc to write a status letter saying, "I have examined Mr. Unregistered and with regards to ______, he is good to go"
If you look at the -7 form Ron linked, you will see it documents everything the FAA wants to know about an eye exam. Have your eye doc fill out all the appropriate blanks and boxes. Then, if Dr. Bruce advises, ask for a status letter that covers the details the -7 doesn't cover but the FAA is going to want to know about.
There is that. Which is why the advice is there to hire Dr. Bruce Chien as your consultant to get ahead of this. Use him to learn how to put a submission packet together that hopefully results in just a stern warning.
Done wrong by "doing it your own way" (and "your" includes an AME who isn't familiar with handling cases such as yours) has a much higher likelihood of shooting your career down in flames. This includes declaring and hoping and praying it sqeaks by.
There should be no impediment to issuance, any potential legal issues regarding your earlier failure to report notwithstanding. However, as long as you weren't flying with a grounding condition in the interim, the FAA tends to forgo enforcement action over such failures to report as long as you bring it to their attention before they discover it on their own.
Then before you go further, you need to talk to Bruce to find out if you broke any FAA medical rules back then and to make sure you're legal to fly now.
