"Lucky" Patient onboard AC757 on May 8
 

Posting this live from AC757 (YYZ-SFO) on May 8.

The crew just asked for a medical doctor willing to volunteer their services. Lucky for them (and the patient in question), there's a whole army of doctors from UCSF and Stanford onboard returning home from some medical conference in Toronto (at least that's what I gathered from the conversations I overheard). A bunch of them just looked at each other and said "who's got this?". :p

Probably iMiG in Ottawa. Which means all oncologists 😄

I was on a Rouge flight once and a passenger dislocated her kneecap getting into the seat.

They called for a doctor and conference of heart doctors came to help and collectively shrugged their shoulders.

Luckily there was a family doctor on the plane to save the day.

Perhaps, though I think I heard one of them say they're pediatricians.

I just went to get a water, and an FA asked "are you a doctor, too?". :P

OK, so PAS in Toronto.

So true! After witnessing a similar incident (not on a plane, but with lots of MDs around) I asked one of them how they decided who would deal with a patient -- the answer was that ER doctors trump everything else, and if there isn't an ER doc there's usually a family doctor who will take over. If it's all specialists, you might as well just go looking for a first aid kit...

This is not quite how it works.

There are different medical authorities in Canada. Here is one rough example.

Firefighter (MFR/AMFR)
Paramedic (BCP, ACP, CCP)
Nurse (....RN)
Doctor (MD)

In this list above (rough example), it's in descending order such that the MD has the highest authority. In Canada, one can only hand off a patient to an equal or higher medical authority.

That said, if one is a MD, a gyno is not superior to an ER doctor, from a legal standpoint. So yes while an ER doctor may trump everybody else, it's on a case by case basis depending on what a patient presents symptom wise. Ultimately attending to a patient's needs is what is most important.

That said even a brain surgeon who is obviously a MD is far better to deal with many medical maladies than say, a firefighter, and from a legal perspective, if the MD/brain surgeon lays hands on the patient, then he becomes the lead medical attendant for that patient, for better or for worse.

Dr. Milton Compagno :)

I was on a flight YYZ -YVR and the Pax sitting next to me had a seizure.
One doctor on board the SD and also there was an offduty FA travelling
The Doctor and the off duty FA handled the situation.
It was quite scary but they handled it with great calm. I moved seat and the off duty FA & Doctor sat with the PAX . During my layover in YVR I went on Facebook and praised AC on the way the ordeal was handled.

Upon boarding my next flight I was magically upgraded to J . :-)

yep, my neighbor was there... though she is a nephrologist subspecialist which means almost useless in medical emergency....
A paramedic is probably one of the best responders to an inflight emergency.. also a firefighters.. these are the folks that re used to frontline field work....
​​​​​​​ let's face it; most physicians aren't well equipped for hands on field work.... I wouldn't want a brain surgeon anywhere near me during an inflight emergency...

that all being said, the physicians I would want would be an ER, intensivisit or anesthesiologist... these are the docs that are used to handling the ABCs of medicine on a hands on basis

FDW

I wasn't on a flight but I was with 2 friends (one firefighter and one a neurosurgeon) during an emergency at a trail race. The firefighter took the lead and the doctor was really an extra set of hands for him. It wasn't an issue at all just because of the reality of their jobs. We talked about it later that night. The last time the doctor had inserted an IV was during medical school and another team always preps his patients for surgery. The firefighter is usually first on scene and stabilizing outside of a hospital until they can hand off to a paramedic.

If you're in the air over land, that's probably what you're really hoping for... stabilize until you can land and get to the hospital.

Sure, but I wasn't talking about legal rules. I was talking about how doctors resolve the situation of "patient on the floor, six MDs standing around wondering which of them should take charge".

Reminds me of a non-flight story. I live in Rochester, MN - home of the Mayo Clinic. My son was playing soccer and a kid went down and the umpire asked if there was a doctor around. We all looked at each other and asked whet specialty he needed. :cool: Turned out to be a fracture, so the trauma surgeon took care of it.

​​​All this specialty talk reminds me of a classic Far Side comic:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e67dfc70d4.jpg