UND staff members say Center for Aerospace Medicine will serve as resource to pilots throughout the state
May 27—GRAND FORKS — With the passage of House Bill 1612, UND will be able to expand mental health support and Federal Aviation Administration medical certification assistance to pilots throughout the state.
"(The bill allows) us to take what we've built here in Grand Forks and help pilots across the state of North Dakota," said Elizabeth Bjerke, UND's associate dean of aerospace. "North Dakota has the highest pilot per-capita rate in the country — there's a lot of pilots in the state of North Dakota, which is exciting. Now we're poised to help them."
Signed by Gov. Kelly Armstrong on April 29, House Bill 1612 will allow UND to establish the North Dakota Center for Aerospace Medicine, which is a very new concept, Bjerke said. Up to $250,000 in one-time funding was allocated to establish the center, according to a press release the university issued Wednesday, May 14.
The Center for Aerospace Medicine will address the unique standards for pilots, such as the routine medical physicals required to allow them to maintain a medical certificate and continue flying, according to Jessica Doty, director of student health services. Because the bill passed, pilots throughout North Dakota will be able to meet with aviation medical examiners (AMEs) located at UND, according to Rep. Landon Bahl, R-Grand Forks, who was the primary sponsor of the bill.
In the past, UND's AMEs only met with UND student pilots, while others had to travel out of state to meet with AMEs, who are trained specifically by the FAA, which oversees medical requirements and determines what diagnoses and medications may affect a pilot's certification.
House Bill 1612 will also allow UND to do additional work to increase awareness and outreach, Bjerke said. Some of those efforts will include working directly with pilots, but there will also be efforts to teach health care providers and UND medical school students what pilots' needs and standards are.
How exactly to move forward is still being discussed, Bjerke said. Another mental health professional may be hired to accommodate the anticipated increase in clientele.
The Center for Aerospace Medicine will function as a collaboration between campus partners, including the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Student Health Services and University Counseling Center.
"UND is just so uniquely set up for this, because we have the medical school; we have the aerospace college, with 2,000 students learning to fly airplanes; we've got our student health (department) that does 1,000 of these aviation medical (evaluations) a year, and has been doing them from 40 years; we have our counseling center with psychologists who are trained specifically on this aviation psychology piece," Bjerke said. "So we just have all the right players right here at UND. It only makes sense to really come together for this initiative."
The purpose of pilot health requirements is to protect both them and their passengers, but one consequence is that pilots sometimes hesitate to disclose mental health concerns or seek help, Doty said.
"When a pilot has any sort of mental health diagnosis or mental health needs, their medical certificate's at risk," she said.
This issue came to the forefront during the pandemic, when UND staff realized how challenging it was for student pilots to seek help, particularly due to concerns that they would risk disrupting their flight training. An aviation mental health task force was formed, and different stakeholders were brought in to address the problem.
"Despite that effort, tragedy befell UND aviation in the fall of 2021 with the death of John Hauser, who was on a training flight to Fargo," the university's press release said. Hauser's death, determined to be a suicide, was something of a catalyst for the university, Bjerke said.
Since then, a number of initiatives have been enacted, including establishing the annual Aviation Mental Health Summit and directing $600,000 in investment funds to building an aerospace network that would increase students' access to care, according to the release.
"We've been building a UND to better serve the state of North Dakota, and the pilots and air traffic controllers across the state," Bjerke said.
Hauser's death was not only impactful to current UND students and staff; it also had an impact on Bahl, who was in the same fraternity as Hauser — Delta Tau Delta.
"That's really what started, I would say, a lot of these conversations — especially at the university level — in terms of mental health within aviation," Bahl said.
A second pilot from the same fraternity died by suicide within a year, prompting Bahl to pursue solutions at the federal level. He said he was disheartened to learn how challenging the process would be, but determined, he sought local help.
He connected with Bjerke and Doty early on in this legislative session, and they made the proposal that would ultimately become House Bill 1612.
The bill had tremendous support, with supporting testimony from 40 fraternity brothers and approximately 20 others, Bahl said.
The bill's passage is a step in the right direction, but his hopes do not end there.
"The much larger win is when we are able to change federal regulations and the strong, stringent guidelines that they put on pilots — because that's ultimately what ensures that pilots do or don't go seek help," Bahl said. "The day will come where the FAA will look at what we're doing here in our state, and we'll be a huge, huge guide for them to start to change FAA guidelines."
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