Wright-Patt officer earns Raymond F. Longacre Award

  • Published
  • By Laura McGowan
  • 88 Air Base Wing Public Affairs
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE --  Col. (Doctor) Kent McDonald, chief, Neuropsychiatry Branch, Aerospace Medicine Consultation Division, U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, 711 Human Performance Wing, here, recently was selected to receive the Raymond F. Longacre award.

Established in memory of Marine Corps Maj. Raymond Longacre, the award is presented annually to individuals for their outstanding accomplishments in psychology and psychiatry in aerospace medicine.

"It's a great honor," said McDonald when asked about receiving the award. "Raymond Longacre was instrumental in looking at more objective ways to predict which pilots would succeed.

"He developed the first adaptability rating for military aviation in 1930, and my branch has continued that work, looking at objective means of predicting success and failure using formulas based on standardized cognitive and personality tests," he said.

Under McDonald's leadership, his team established enhanced aerospace mental health research, using broad-based clinical and operational research to improve USAF policy across the aviator lifecycle. Additionally, he updated all 14 mental health chapters of the Air Force waiver guide utilized by aviation organizations globally.

His team understood that people can work long hours for short periods of time, but eventually it is not just the physiologic affects that are problematic, but their isolation from their community and significant relationships also become relevant.

"We have highly intelligent and resilient members in our RPA (remotely piloted aircraft) crews but they are still humans and will eventually have problems if pushed too hard for too long," McDonald said. "Our work made the case for inserting psychologists with the appropriate clearances in RPA units. Probably in the future we will see even more attention given to optimizing work rest cycles for performance."

They addressed the high rates of aircrew training failures by developing methods that incorporated both personality and cognitive factors as selection variables, and as a result graduation rates improved, ultimately advancing the way the Air Force selects for multiple aviation career fields.

"[Dr. McDonald] has been a terrific advocate for the aviator," said Dr. Daniel Van Syoc, who nominated McDonald for this prestigious award. "It is a very high level award within the Aerospace Medical Association and will be awarded in May during the annual meeting in San Diego."

"He has worked tirelessly to update aviation standards in mental health and has led numerous research teams that look at different effects of stress in the workplace," Van Syoc said.