It’s not just the FAA, it’s all aviation medicals. I’m a Canadian pilot who hasn’t been able to fly for years due to a ridiculously harsh ruling from our medical board requiring years of tests and thousands of dollars out of pocket if I ever want to have the chance to fly again. All over something my local aviation doctor predicted would take a month or two and I’d be back in the air. I tried to fight it but the review process is a joke and took a year before they even contacted me about my case. By that point I had dropped out of the university where I was doing my training to become a commercial pilot.

The big issue is aviation has zero tolerance for risk. Feeling depressed? Medical revoked. Issues sleeping? Medical revoked. Chest aches? Medical revoked. All it can take sometimes is a small issue. The thing is that, lets be honest, given the choice no-one really wants to get on a plane with a depressed or sleep deprived pilot. It’s added risk, so instead we require our pilots to be the healthiest one can be. But everyone has issues, even if you know it or not. There’s a reason alcohol abuse is so common in aviation. The thing that really needs to get figured out is, what’s the solution here? We either make pilots to continue to hide any health issues they have from their aviation medical doctor and pretend they don’t exist, until one day something horrible but totally preventable happens, or we start addressing the medical issues pilots face and being more lenient on what would take away their medical certificate - but then if something happens as a result the liability is now on the aviation governing body for allowing someone with a known issue to fly. The aviation medical system is fundamentally broken but I have no clue how it can be fixed.