Aviation medicine, which is also called as Aerospace medicine or flight medicine is an occupational medicine or preventive medicine where in subjects or patients are aircrews, pilots or people involved in spaceflight. The specialty of medicine focuses on treating and preventing conditions to which aircrews are specifically susceptible and applied knowledge of medicine to the human factors in aviation. Therefore, this branch of medicine is more important when it comes to aviation safety.

A civilian practitioner of this branch of medicine can be called as aviation medical examiner, while a military practitioner of aviation medicine is called as flight surgeon. Diploma in Aviation medicine is a PG course in the field of medicine extending to a period of two years and this course is being offered by only a single college and this college is a government college, whose name is:

• Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Indian Air Force, Bangalore

About Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Indian Air Force, Bangalore:

Institute of Aerospace Medicine shortly called as IAM is a premier institution of the Indian Air Force operating from the city of Bangalore in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute acts as the only hub for aerospace medicine in the nation that is approved by the Medical Council of India and affiliated to the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences. The institute has been acting as the centre for aero medical activities pertaining to civil aviation and military from the late 1950s. The institute not only offers diploma in Aviation medicine course, but is also offering MD in the aviation medicine.

About Diploma in Aviation Medicine:

Diploma in Aviation medicine course extends to a period of three years and the course is interdisciplinary in nature taking inputs from different fields like bioengineering, biophysics, psychology, physiology and medicine.

Eligibility requirement:

For getting into the Diploma in Aviation medicine course, civilian candidates must have completed their MBBS course from a recognized university with not less than 55% of aggregate marks. Candidates should also have registered with the state Medical Council or central medical council.

Admission Procedure:

Admission of civilian candidates to the Diploma in Aviation medicine course is done based on All India level written examination of MCQ format and selected candidates will be called for interview. Out of the total number of seats available in the institution for this course, some seats are reserved for civilians, while some seats are reserved for serving military doctors. Different admission procedure is being followed by the institution for military doctors and general civilian candidates.

Normally, the institute invites applications from civilians to apply for course by advertising through leading newspapers in English, Hindi and Kannada (local language of Bangalore).

Scope of Diploma in Aviation Medicine course:

Diploma in Aviation medicine can acts as an entrance ticket for civilian doctors, who wish to offer their service to the civil aviation industry. Moreover, the course can offer them prestigious placement in military with good pay scale as well. Further, they can get the satisfaction of offering their service to the people working towards the protection of the nation.