Everyone who holds even the most specialized credentials had to acquire basic skills before proceeding through the endless years of additional training. IME most inflight medical emergencies do not require an interventional cardiologist, just some basic supportive care. Anyone beyond MS3 training should be able to handle it, IMO.

UA's inflight medical kits are indeed quite spiffy these days, including naloxone (Narcan) and AED. IME crew are well trained to respond.

Medlink is fine but it has its limitations. Absent a trained provider they are the best available resource. With a qualified provider it's a collaborative scenario. On a UAEX flight a few years back a guy about three days older than carbon with obvious cachexia and a permanent trach, sitting up front with his family, went into the loo and lingered a long time. Daughter expressed concern and when FA opened the door the guy face planted in the galley area, right in front of my seat in 1A. I instinctively jumped up to assist, and a nurse in row 3 joined. Unresponsive, total gork. Applied AED - flat line "shock advised" - did a couple shocks, still flatline. MedLink (following their algorithms) said stab his heart with epi, I quietly asked FA to tell MedlInk guy was fixed and dilated well over 10 minutes and I would not do that in front of his family (didn't want that to be their final memory of grandpa.) MedLink agreed. We diverted and the local EMTs and coroner were very smooth and professional, quite sensitive to impact on accompanying family members.

Can't reliably quantify how often I responded to inflight incidents. Over the years on domestic and int'l flights have assisted with a Japanese businessman leaving Vegas who was hungover right to the edge of ETOH toxicity, a young women in sickle cell crisis, panic attacks, dehydration, allergic reaction, acute abdomen, asthma attack and COPD decompensation. Most handled w/o MedLink, may have been prior to that availability. Only the acute abdomen required diversion, done on my recommendation.

In none of these cases did I ever learn of the eventual patient outcome. I did/do routinely provide my business card to the crew, and once or twice was asked to help complete some paperwork. One time I did receive a nice thank you and mileage deposit (think this was pre-merger CO.)

Old school, old hippie, bleeding heart or whatever, I cannot imagine failing to respond to an inflight request for assistance.