Major William Hayes, Flight Surgeon

William HayesMajor William Hayes in his flight suit. All flight surgeons go through flight training and Bill is looking forward to earning his pilot's license. 

Major William Hayes in his flight suit. All flight surgeons go through flight training and Bill is looking forward to earning his pilot's license.

A board certified family practice physician, Major William Hayes is an active duty flight surgeon in the United States Air Force, providing health care to pilots and their families. His study at Yale serves as the first year of three of a Residency in Aerospace Medicine (RAM) that will qualify him for command positions.

“The public health degree allows me to take assignments that take in a bigger perspective,” says Bill. This combination of the MPH degree and RAM training is well established in the upper ranks of the Air Force medical leadership.

After earning his MPH in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine track, Bill will spend next year at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base completing a practicum in aerospace medicine (and exercising his newly acquired epidemiology and biostatistics muscle), and then the following year he will focus on occupational medicine. The combination of specialties positions Bill to assume roles commanding flight medicine clinics, leading a medical unit, or setting up emergency medical stations during deployment.

"The military has been very good to us,” says Bill, referring to his wife and daughter, and he is glad that Yale has been a part of that. “We need more flight surgeons; this is a career path physicians should really consider.”