Aviation Medicine

Heroes Remember

Aviation Medicine

Transcript

It was the best thing in my life, best thing that happened to me because here I was Deputy Commander of the Central Aircrew Medical Board and what they actually had done, was channel me in a direction where I would remain for the rest of my life, you know. At that time I wanted to do obstetrics and gynaecology and initially they said well you go to Moosejaw and do a couple of years then you’ll get the rest of your post grad. But instead of that they channelled me into aviation medicine and I have no regrets about that. Aviation medicine is all medicine as it applies to the air environment. For instance, fitness of pilots to fly, fitness of patients to fly, fitness of flight attendants to fly, if they’re pregnant and at what stage do you ground them. Flight times and flight duty times, pilot fatigue, research, accidents investigation, lecturing. As you can see it’s a pretty wide field and you have to be very well informed about all the areas of medicine.

Description

Dr. Blizzard explains how he was channelled in the direction of aviation medicine while serving as Deputy Commander of the central aircrew medical board and the role he played in this position.

Dr. Stephen Blizzard

Dr. Stephen Blizzard was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad in 1928. His father was the principal of a primary school during his childhood. Dr. Blizzard left Trinidad in 1948. He received a scholarship to attend high school and graduated in 1953 from a school in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1958 he came to Canada. In 1959, he attended university with the Reserve Training Plan in Ontario attending medical school and in 1963 graduated in medicine and chose to intern at the Ottawa Citizen Hospital and resident in surgery at the National Defence Medical Centre. He spent two years as Senior Medical Officer at Rockcliffe base then was posted to Moosejaw where he had medical training and training to fly jets. On December 13, 1968 he obtained his wings. Following this, Dr. Blizzard was posted to the RCAF Institute of Aviation Medicine. Afer returning to Trinidad for six years, Dr. Blizzard then came back to Canada in 1976. With 16 years of military service, Dr. Blizzard continued on his career path and was employed with the Department of Civil Aviation Medicine holding many positions, one being senior official on the aviation medical review board for 12 years. Dr. Blizzard contributes much of his military career training to his success in life.

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