interested in aviation medical examiner job

[ascreenname]

hello, i saw a thread in this section about AME jobs, but it was closed. i had a few more questions about the job, if anyone has some experience with this. i have completed an internship in internal medicine and all the Step exams. i'm in the process of obtaining my license in my state. i resigned from my residency because of personal reasons, but am trying to find a route to somehow salvage all the time that was invested. i heard about the AME job and read about the requirements. however, the FAA website was not clear about whether board certification was necessary. it also seemed as if only current practitioners with their own offices up and running could apply for the position. so my questions are:

1) can someone with an IM categorical internship and a valid state medical license apply for the AME position

2) can someone without an active practice apply, i have some modest capital and real estate and i believe i could set up a single person office with no or 1 assistant relatively quickly

3) i read that the positions are limited and only open up when someone leaves, so how often do positions open up and how competitive are they

my goal if i were to be designated with a position would be to focus solely on examinations. i probably wouldn't make a lot of money (100-130 an exam i heard, and very limited patient panel), but i don't mind as long as i can make ends meet. i also know that doing this wouldn't be very intellectually stimulating or exciting, but at least i could put what i learned to perform a sort of service to a community. do you think goal is attainable?

i think the best place to ask would be to contact a regional flight surgeon on the FAA site, but i'm just trying to find some general information on the net first

 

[My Flight Surgeon]

1) You can apply but there are 2 issues: a) they only designate a select number of examiners based on the number of pilots in a geographic area and b) the FAA like all other organizations has many from which to select thus they tend to look at better trained, board certified physicians.
2) You must have an active practice and an unrestricted medical license
3) They open very rarely and are very competetive.

In your instance, it would be difficult to make this work. It takes years to build a practice of pilots only and you would need some other income stream to make ends meet.

 

[ascreenname]

Thanks for your input, I guess I'll have to keep looking into other options.