The psychiatrist's role in aerospace operations.
This paper presents two unique aspects of aerospace psychiatry: the influence of the specialized stressors and occupational requirements of an aviation career and the ambiguous role of the aerospace psychiatrist. Aerospace psychiatrists have multiple, sometimes conflicting, responsibilities to the organization and society (the social control task) and to the individual aviator (the humanistic and medical tasks). In the two case reports below the authors describe airmen who had vasovagal syncope and how the psychiatrist intervened and resolved these conflicting tasks.
D000328:Adult; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D010551:Personality; D013026:Space Flight; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000209:etiology; D013575:Syncope / Q000523:psychology