wildcat077

A good friend of mine has sleep apnea and uses a CPAP machine … we went through the PCA DE process together and both reached the black run group until i decided to go racing and he chose to become a PCA instructor …
We’ve had some pretty wild nights , M if you’re reading this post , Calabogie nights was one of the most memorable weekends where somebody walked through the screen door !
Anyhow , never have i had any doubts about his driving skills or track awareness and we were always a group chasing and passing each other at all parts of the tracks where we were running together.
This PCA reasoning is totally stupid and makes no sense !

Cheers
Phil

fatbillybob

Your are in the club and helped in the club not just a driver. Can you get on the medical committee and have a voice?

SCCA has a medical committee. It sets policy like what are the responsibilities of the medical chief at the meets. He has an important job like making sure all emergency medical is in place before racing starts for example, number of ambulances, extraction team ready, ACLS on site etc and what happens if EMS is needed in the paddock for non-drivers.

ProCoach

BOOM!

Thank you for this terrific post.

Professor Helmüt Tester

You just described the duties and responsibilities of the "SCCA Safety Steward". No medical training required for that assignment.

DTMiller

Can confirm. I assure you I am not a doctor.

fatbillybob

I think SCCA safety steward is something different.

From the GCR:
5.4. EMERGENCY SERVICES – MEDICAL AND FIRE SAFETY The Chief of ES, in conjunction with the Race Chairman and ACS – Safety, staffs and equips the event for medical and fire safety. 5. Officials, Operating Procedures, Equipment GCR - 38 5.4.1. Purpose A. To establish equipment and personnel needed to affect a workable medical, fire, and safety plan. Detailed plans need to be based on the specific conditions at the event facility and local, state or federal protocols and regulations. B. The Chief of ES shall be familiar with local, state, and federal regulations for accident and medical emergencies. At tracks where SCCA volunteer medical personnel cannot perform medical duties, the Chief of ES and the ACS – Safety will be responsible to ensure that proper medical equipment is avail- able, and that proper medical procedures are being followed. C. A copy of the medical and fire safety plan for each track must be submitted by the Divisional Executive Steward to the National Office.

5.4.2. Personnel A. Medical The following apply: 1. There will be a Chief Medical Official who is either: 1) Physician, MD or DO, preferably with an EMS background and licensed to practice in at least one (1) state or, 2) Paramedic or equivalent (advanced life support technician) with an active license or certification for the state in which they are operating, or, 3) PA (Physicians Assistant) or APN (Advanced Practice Nurse) trained and experienced in EMS and emergency medicine with an active license. The Chief Medical Official may be a person contracted with the track, and not an SCCA member, but he must coordinate with the Chief of ES. 2. There should be a second licensed medical person (EMT, paramedic, physician’s assistant, registered nurse, etc) to assist the Chief Medical Official(s). 3. Medical personnel report to the event Chief Medical Official. 4. Medical units should be stationed so that the maximum time for a first medical response is no more than 2 minutes. B. Fire Fighters 1. At least 2 persons who are trained to use the equi

DTMiller

The highlighted text is how it happens in real life.

Mahler9th

Everything else being equal... something I have been pondering...

If you report to PCA medical that you have been diagnosed with OSA, the implication here is that in some, most or all cases you must provide evidence of ongoing therapy.

If your personal medical provider suggests an oral appliance or some other therapy, what data/information would PCA require as "proof of ongoing therapy?"

Would you have to use, for example, and oral appliance with an IoT chip in it? Does that even exist (lol)?

Or provide some type of video data showing that you put the device in your mouth a certain number of hours and a certain number of nights on a percentage basis?

Are the papers in the journals that compare the effectiveness of CPAP therapy to other interventions that do not have capability to collect and store data? Probably yes.

If you don't have to provide data, why would a CPAP user have to provide data from his or her machine?

Or does PCA only grant licenses to people with self-disclosed OSA diagnosis, that are under CPAP therapy?

Can a person with OSA get a CDL without using CPAP therapy, but rather using an alternative that does not store data?

Clear as mud.

Professor Helmüt Tester

Sigh.. Please stop.

You've discovered the event requirements in the GCR, which has nothing to do with the club's Medical Director - a CMO at an EVENT, who could be simply a licensed Paramedic on an ambulance, who is considered the lead medical officer at an EVENT. This has nothing to do with a national medical director involved in licensing standards and approving licenses for members with medical issues. That position no longer exists.

The position of the SCCA Medical Director did exist in the SCCA Operations Manual (not the GCR, not the Bylaws) prior to 2016. It no longer exists. Go look. We'll wait....

PHT

fatbillybob

I do not know what your point is but those requirements at an event are important to our lives. That's why they are there. The SCCA operations manual is 60 pages long more like a directory outline while the GCR for just road racing is some 700 pages.

In it the operations manual says: 5. Road Racing Administration 5.1 Basic Policies The SCCA has established rules for road racing programs. These rules and regulations reflect the basic road racing policies of the Club, as adopted by the BoD to satisfy the needs and pleasures of its members. Road Racing events are speed events with wheel-to-wheel competition on a closed circuit. All SCCA Road Racing events are governed by the SCCA Road Racing General Competition Rules (GCR) and must be sanctioned by the SCCA. Please refer to the current edition of the SCCA Road Racing General Competition Rules, Insurance Handbook, and FasTrack for further details.

The GCR is where the meat is for road racing. Those details posted in the GCR are quite specific regarding emergency medical requirements and those did not come from a layperson who would have zero understanding of the requirements just like you have no understanding of what a "simply a licensed Paramedic on an ambulance" can do in regards their level of competence in advanced cardiac life support for starters. These are highly skilled and highly trained medical personnel who work under pressure. But that's OK... We have drifted from the topic and I'll back out now....

walk on...

Professor Helmüt Tester

Again...you are in water too deep for you here. Please stop. This thread is about licensing standards at the organization level, not about medical staffing at the event level.

Oh...and in any state, a paramedic must carry an ACLS (Acute Cardiac Life Support) cert. Not some magical medical journey of discovery here. Throwing terms around will not reinforce your argument (whatever it might be). I am quite familiar with the GCR, the SCCA Insurance handbook, and where to look to find Fastrack changes, and have been for several decades.

Racing organizations have minimum standards for staffing at EVENTS. PCA has a standard, as does SCCA, NASA, IMSA, USAC, etc. SCCA requires a minimum of one ALS ambulance..."ALS" means paramedic, versus an EMT who would be found on a BLS ambulance).

But none of this about EVENTS has anything to do with the medical requirements for license issuance. THAT is relevant to this discussion. EVENT staff have nothing to do with licensing and medical staffing.

Sigh,

PHT

Matt Lane

Felipe, miss you Brother! Great times for sure

Yeah, this whole thread has got me scratching my head. I have bad sleep apnea. I LOVE my CPAP, aka the Scuba Machine, wouldn't enjoy even a nap without it. It's been over 10 year now, I don't snore a bit or have one moment of disturbed sleep.

But this rule application is beyond invasive. If you're gonna monitor my sleeping, then you have to monitor a whole bunch of other stuff too. Do a good enough job, and no one's gonna be droving, perfect the enemy of the good.

Cheers

Matt

Streak

To my mind the use of a CPAP should be a GOOD thing from the medical committee's stand point.

If you take medicine for high blood pressure isn't that a good thing as far as PCA medical?

Why would use of a CPAP be treated any different.

lgusto

First off, many of the folks contributing to this thread, and PCA Instructors in general, are some of the finest people I've ever known. Selfless doesn't even begin to describe you guys. So "losing" anyone due to such a nonsensical issue would be heartbreaking.

Perhaps the PCA's refusal to specify exactly what data they require from the OP opens the door for a compromise that allows everyone to save face. Perhaps an attestation from a board certified Pulmonologist or similar that they have reviewed your CPAP data would allow PCA to say they've received adequate information?

In fact, PCA should welcome this approach and even adopt it going forward for any medical condition due to the extreme and growing threat of cyber security liability related to the retention of medical records. One only has to look at the recent Change Healthcare security breach which crippled much of the country's reimbursement systems to know that any organizational policy that requires the needless spreading of detailed personal medical data is untenable.

Full disclosure, I spend way too much time on Medicare privacy and data security requirements in my day job.

DTMiller

Or the organization could look and see if the doctor seeing the human being at issue, live and in the flesh in their office, has signed the form and then stamp the form like the good little bureaucrat that they are supposed to be.