Mariner Medical Manual
Fit for Duty
The Coast Guard says it expects mariner medical evaluations to be ‘less subjective and more efficient.’
By Dale K. DuPont, Correspondent
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he Coast Guard’s recently released Merchant Mariner Medical Manual is an attempt to clarify and explain often frustrating rules that can put mariners in a bind over health issues and jeopardize their license. The 292-page proposed rule consolidates guidance previously scattered in a variety of documents. As a result, the Coast Guard says it expects medical evaluations will be “less subjective and more efficient.” Nice try, said mariners, trade groups and others who weighed in, but they still have questions and concerns about issues such as certificate cancellation policies, responsibility for bad decisions, the frequency of exams, and fitness for credentials versus fitness for duty. The draft manual drew favorable comments on the Designated Medical Examiner (DME) pilot program, though many want a widespread rollout sooner rather than later. Long under discussion
as a way to speed medical reviews, the DME program would allow Coast Guard-certified local doctors to determine mariners’ fitness. Mariners could still choose to use their personal doctor whose report would be reviewed by the Coast Guard. Among the manual’s major changes: the Coast Guard will no longer require medical certificates for entry level mariners on vessels not subject to STCW who do not serve as food handlers; and the addition of a specific procedure for cancelling a certificate when the agency receives “credible information” a mariner is no longer fit. “This manual’s process for removing restrictions or waivers, or restoring medical certificate eligibility, seems uncomfortably weighted toward taking away one’s ability to sail, without considering that many conditions — even very serious ones — are temporary in nature,” commented one person identified as “a licensed unlimited tonnage www.workboat.com • MAY 2019 • WorkBoat
Photo courtesy of Ben Powell/BARGE
Proposed rule aims to speed mariner medical reviews.
