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0 pointsvonseel7y ago0 comments

You were downvoted for this, and I agree that it’s a controversial stance, but there is a genuine point to be made here.

It’s not uncommon for teenagers to be misdiagnosed with mental illness or ADHD and either of those are disqualifiers for FAA medical certification, military pilot careers, and likely many other military, law enforcement, and intelligence careers. IIRC, a prolonged history of ADHD treatment is enough to disqualify military entrance for any MOS without waiver. Waivering prior ADHD diagnosis requires a costly and difficult process to undiagnose the patient and prove that he or she no longer has the condition and was incorrectly diagnosed in the first place, at least if you are trying to get FAA certified for a Class 1.

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mcny7y ago

> It’s not uncommon for teenagers to be misdiagnosed with mental illness or ADHD and either of those are disqualifiers for FAA medical certification, military pilot careers, and likely many other military, law enforcement, and intelligence careers. IIRC, a prolonged history of ADHD treatment is enough to disqualify military entrance for any MOS without waiver. Waivering prior ADHD diagnosis requires a costly and difficult process to undiagnose the patient and prove that he or she no longer has the condition and was incorrectly diagnosed in the first place, at least if you are trying to get FAA certified for a Class 1.

How do you feel about the (I presume underlying notion, at least when it comes to programming jobs) that a "bad" hire is costly and we'd rather let ten potentially great candidates go rather than accidentally hire one very bad candidate?

maxerickson7y ago

It's rooted in an absurd confidence in the interview process actually successfully evaluating candidates.

In practice, I bet places that emphasize that attitude tend to hire people that the interviewers like socially.

saulrh7y ago

The relative risk of driving while having ADD/ADHD (accidents/km with / accidents/km without) is around 1.54 [1]. This isn't horrible, of course, but it's still bad.

Non-disqualifying visual impairments have a relative risk down around 1.2, implying a surprisingly low cutoff for a visual impairment being disqualifying. "Severe behavioral problems due to ageing (dementia)" have a RR 1.45. A category covering epilepsy, narcolepsy, and other conditions causing sudden interruptions/disturbances in consciousness is at 1.84, and those conditions require medical sign-off in every country I checked. Diagnosed alcoholism amortizes to around 2, and that'll get you a breathalyzer or suspended license right quick.

The cutoff for being ticketed is is observed to lie around a relative risk of 4, which is where cell phones come in. The cutoff for being arrested on the spot, being legally drunk, is a relative risk well above 10 and probably up around 40.

Interestingly, almost nothing is as bad as being a teenage male, which carries a relative risk around 7. Teenage females are around 5.5.

That all said... while we can certainly complain about rampant misdiagnosis - I wish I had a dollar for every time someone told me that I'm just addicted to stimulants - my opinion is that this particular rationale for disqualification is absolutely justified. There's a reason I don't drive.

[1] https://www.toi.no/getfile.php/Publikasjoner/T%C3%98I%20rapp...

vonseelOP7y ago

Hmm, I haven't had a chance to thoroughly check out the article you linked, but I am surprised it's coming from Norway of all places. ADHD isn't as widely treated in Norway as the USA; additionally, Norway's population is only about 5.5 million people, so I am a bit surprised they have conducted enough research on ADHD and driving to present strong research on this. That said, I'm not saying you're wrong or the research is invalid. I'm just surprised.

"That all said... while we can certainly complain about rampant misdiagnosis - I wish I had a dollar for every time someone told me that I'm just addicted to stimulants - my opinion is that this particular rationale for disqualification is absolutely justified."

So, I'm also an ADHD patient, medicated. I've gone back and forth between believing in the diagnosis and thinking maybe I'm just dependent on the medication that I've taken for so many years. It's hard to say now, and of course quitting stimulants requires a LOT of time off work and learning to execute tasks without pharmaceutical aid. So, if you were to take a patient who has been on amphetamine for 10 years and abruptly cut him/her off, the patient would likely go through a period of fatigue, low-interest in activities or work, and struggling getting anything done. I've heard this can take as long as 6 months or a year for certain people. I don't believe you can diagnose ADD/ADHD or any comorbid mental illness in the presence of drug withdrawal. Think of it as a "brain re-training" period. As you can imagine, not many people have the willpower or resources ($) to take time off work and truly "reset" their brains, so they stay on the meds and hope that it works out..

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