A NEW PLACE
Jeremy Robertson, type 1, is paving the way for Australian pilots requiring insulin therapy
“I remember sitting by myself in the doctor’s office in Los Angeles,” recalls 42-year-old Jeremy Robertson of his diagnosis ten years ago. “I didn’t know anyone in town and I knew enough about diabetes to know that type 1, at that point, automatically disqualified you from holding a Class 1 aviation medical [a certificate required to be a commercial pilot in Australia]. So I knew that my career stopped dead that day.”
Jeremy had been working as a pilot with Qantas on the Boeing 747 and 767 for nine years when, in early 2010, he enrolled in a course at the National Test Pilot School in California to further his career. During the first week, Jeremy noticed he was drinking and urinating more often, and when his vision went blurry he knew something was off. After all, you can’t fly a plane without clear vision.
Attending the local medical centre in LA, Jeremy learnt his BGLs were 25.5mmol/L and he was given a shot of insulin and a bottle of Metformin tablets. “I remember calling my fiancé – this was six weeks before our wedding – crying and just not knowing what was going to happen,” he explains. “So I got on the next plane home to Australia and I went through the remainder of the formal diagnosis process.”
Changing lanes
With no family history of autoimmune diseases, this new world of diabetes was a shock. “Not only was this a diagnosis of a chronic disease, but it had destroyed my professional career,” he says. “In hindsight, I really wish I had sought help from a counsellor or psychologist, because if I’m brutally honest with myself, it was 2-3 years before I was emotionally at peace with what happened. And that process would’ve been a lot easier if I had allowed people to help.
“But the conclusion I came to was that this was too much of a catastrophic event for my career to dwell on it as a loss,” Jeremy continues. “I had to look at this as an opportunity: ‘you’re 31 years old, and given an absolute clean slate. What do you want to do?’”
Diving into what he loved and disliked about aviation, and comparing to other fields, Jeremy kept coming back to medicine. So he started med school in 2012 at the age of 33. “And what is the ultimate irony,” he says, “is that today I am an aviation medical examiner. Meaning I am the doctor who assesses the medical fitness of pilots and their suitability to hold pilot licenses.”
Aviation has always been more than just a career for Jeremy, it’s a passion; and he was eager to get