ORIGINAL: CDignition
Ok, all you armchair doctros,lol... I was wrong....BUT, you can have a pacemaker with Defribullator capabilities built into it (Defribulating pacemaker)..My wife is a Cardiac Critical care nurse, so I found out about it after the fact,lol...
He should be allowed to fly anyway...
I,too, think he should be allowed to fly. The medical condition for which he has his device IS serious, and potentially life threatening, but more than likely controlled by the defibrillator, else he would NOT be allowed to drive. As has been stated, there is a lot of variation in the severity of that condition between individuals, and if his cardiologist feels he can safely drive, he should as well be capable of safely flying an r/c plane. After all, he has the potential to harm himself, property and others to a greater extent in a car wreck, than he would crashing his plane, regardless of the reason for the crash. The potential to lose control of his plane is no worse than if he tripped out at the flight line.
The device may malfunction when new, due to the need to fine tune it to the specific needs of the individual patient. Once fine tuned, changes in the patient's condition may require changes to the device's programming later. I used to be a clinical specialist with the company that invented the first pacemaker, and is a leader in this technology (pacing /cardioversion / defibrillation). These devices are truly amazing and have given back a quality of life to so many; it's a damn shame that the BOD of that club can be so short-sighted.