It happened. That moment I used to panic about when I was flying as a student. The thought I used to have “what will I say if someone asks for a doctor on the plane? I’m just a student , what do I know?” Well, it never happened to me as a student, or as a resident, it now happened as a board certified physician, so of course now the answer was obvious.
I was sitting in my compact coach seat watching a movie, Crazy Rich Asians to be exact (I had to find out what all the hype was about), and then it paused with an overhead intercom message, “is there a doctor on board?” I didn’t even think, my instinct that was drilled into me from many night shifts running the hospital codes, you hear a call and next thing you know your body is moving before the sentence has finished. There were 3 other doctors on board this plane, it was a large international flight. My mind raced wondering what was in the emergency flight kit, do we have to make the call to land if something is seriously wrong? Why don’t I know anything about medicine on a flight!?
Luckily, it wasn’t too serious and easily treated on-board. I looked through the emergency kit and they do have the basics, still leaving a few things to be desired which we recommend they start stocking.
I’m happy it turned out fine, but it did get me thinking. I’m trained for hospital medicine, sure I know how the body works and exactly what to do in the hospital; but what about when things go wrong outside of the hospital and I’m the doctor? I’m not a wilderness medicine physician, I’m a hospital physician. But to anyone else around that wouldn’t matter, to most people a doctor, no matter the specialty, can help when called upon. It is a large responsibility, one I wouldn’t trade for the world, but I can assure you I will be reading up on in-flight medicine, and be prepared to handle what might come my way next flight.
Generally our emergency medicine colleagues are the ones who get extra training (mandatory or optional) on wilderness medicine, but what about the rest of us who are not ER but find ourselves faced with a real life problem in the wilderness, or 38,000 feet in the air and thousands of miles between continents.
Maybe this is a course that should be taught in medical school? Have any of you had a course like this in your training? What are your thoughts?
Commentaires