STANAG 7231 minimum requirements for flight surgeon training

What it is

STANAG 7231 is the NATO Standardization Agreement covering the minimum aviation medicine training for flight surgeons in the militaries of NATO nations. This is Edition 1, promulgated 28 November 2019, and it does not supersede any earlier document.

A STANAG is not the specification

A STANAG is the agreement by which NATO nations commit to implement a standard, not the technical specification itself. STANAG 7231's own text is short and administrative: an aim, an agreement, and the ratification and implementation machinery. The training content itself is specified in a separate publication, AAMedP-1.23, which participating nations "agree to implement" by name. Anyone actually building or checking a flight surgeon training curriculum needs AAMedP-1.23's own text, not this cover agreement.

What it commits nations to

The stated aim is interoperability: to standardize minimum aviation medicine training for flight surgeons "in order to promote safety and efficiency in the operation of military aircraft". Implementation is defined in three concrete parts. A nation's own national aviation medicine training programme for flight surgeons has to be updated to match AAMedP-1.23's provisions. A system has to exist to track, record and evidence that the training has actually happened, not just to run it. And the individual personnel appointed as flight surgeons have to have received the training and be enrolled in continuing professional development, as the standard details it. Where a nation runs no training system of its own for flight surgeons, it has to place its personnel into a training system elsewhere that meets AAMedP-1.23's requirements instead - the standard still has to be met, only the delivery route changes.

Who it binds, and how

STANAG 7231 binds nations, not flight surgeons, training providers or defence contractors directly. It becomes binding on a given nation through ratification, which NATO records in the NATO Standardization Document Database (NSDD), and implementation is a further, separate step that Allies and NATO bodies report through NATO's electronic reporting tool, while partner nations are only invited to do the same. This edition sets no single NATO-wide start date: its own "NATO Effective Date (NED)" field reads "Not applicable". A training provider or defence organisation meets STANAG 7231, or the AAMedP-1.23 requirements it covers, only where a contract, a tasking, or a national training mandate says so.

How it's evaluated

STANAG 7231 describes no certification scheme and no audit of a company or training provider. What it describes is nations reporting their ratification and implementation status to NATO, and individual flight surgeons completing training that is tracked and recorded. Nobody, and no organisation, is "STANAG 7231 certified" - the document never uses that language, and a training record held on an individual flight surgeon is not a certificate an organisation can hold.

Standards it references

STANAG 7231 covers AAMedP-1.23, the Allied Medical Publication that carries the flight surgeon training content itself. Its "Other Related Documents" also name STANAG 3114, which itself covers AAMedP-1.2 on aeromedical training of flight personnel, and the European Aviation Safety Agency's Acceptable Means of Compliance and Guidance Material to Part-MED Subpart D on aero-medical examiners, which sits outside our catalogue. AAP-03 governs how this STANAG itself is reviewed. STANAG 7231 is free to obtain from the NATO Standardization Document Database; NATO does not charge for its standardization documents and we do not host or sell copies.

Standards it references

• AAMedP-1.13Background
• STANAG 3114Background
• AAMedP-1.2Background