The crew will be able to tell, via the giveaway stethoscope.
Posted on 06/08/2018 3:19:08 PM PDT by buckalfa
Physicians and other clinicians are called upon to help passengers during in-flight medical emergencies, but airlines often prefer the guidance of on-the-ground consultants in order to avoid diversions, according to Bloomberg.
A medical emergency occurs once every 604 flights, with 7.3 percent leading to diversions that ground the plane, according to a study The New England Journal of Medicine. While it is standard protocol to first find out if a medical professional is on board before calling a consultant, a diversion can cost as much as $200,000, and airlines look to avoid these diversions whenever possible.
Passenger clinicians are more likely to recommend diversions, so airlines rely on contracted consultants on the ground, who are less likely to recommend such action, to guide pilots. Though the final decision rests with pilots and dispatchers, they rely heavily on the advice of consultants.
"It's fairly expensive to divert an aircraft, and so a captain has to take into account a whole host of issues," Jose Nable, MD, an assistant professor at Washington, D.C-based MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, told Bloomberg.
Paulo Alves, MD, global medical director of aviation health for Medaire, which provides in-flight consulting for over 100 airlines, acknowledged that his consultants recommend fewer diversions than on-board clinicians, but said these passengers are often overly cautious.
"If the model was not financially interesting for [airlines], then they wouldn't hire us," Dr. Alves told Bloomberg. "Doctors, they tend to recommend diversions more than we do, because of course they don’t want to assume the long-term responsibility."
I am so glad I don’t have to take scheduled airlines to travel nowadays.
What would a bean counter say?
And don’t call me Shirley.
If the pilot ignores the recommendation of the physician on board the aircraft, the airline my open itself up to a lawsuit which could cost a lot more than $200,000.
I was flying from Dallas to London. A passenger had a heart attack. We diverted to Boston. Docs on board treated and asked passengers for nitroglycerin tablets if any had some. They did. When we landed in Boston a ambulance was waiting. The patient was off the aircraft in minutes. I hope he lived, I do not know.
my = may
Those roadwarriors with some experience will recognize that a fundamental problem with air travel is that the airline bureaucrats and FAA regulators have managed to take all the resiliency out of airline operations. These days, every time I experience weather interruption because of a thunderstorm in the midwest in the summer - a couple of time per week per airport occurrence - it brings everything to a stop and knock on impacts go on for days.
I was recently on a flight that was cancelled thirty seconds before pushing forward the throttles for take-off because the crew had over-run allowed crew hours (on what was to be a 2.5 hr flight). While I get it about fatigue and safety and regulations, the airlines need to push back real hard on the regulators. This stuff costs travelers a bomb.
Dr. Rumack: Captain, these passengers don’t have much time. How soon can we land?
Oveur: I can’t tell.
Dr. Rumack: You can tell me, I’m a doctor.
Oveur: What I mean is, I don’t know.
Dr. Rumack: Well can’t you take a guess?
Oveur: ...Not for another two hours.
Dr. Rumack: You can’t take a guess for another two hours?
Oveur: No what I’m saying is we can’t land for another two hours.
Hope so. Saw medflight and first responders lose one yesterday. Heli turned off the blades. Ambulance turned back on the hiway back to the hospital morgue. Sad.
I AM a physician. I learned long ago to never admit it in public. The EMS people know their job and you will just get in their way.
Why don’t they just call an air ambulance?
I was recreation director for a large Summer retreat. Our girl’s basketball team was playing another one. One of their girls really twisted her knee.
Their coach was also a Dr. It was so bad that you could see it was out of socket or whatever. I had one of my crew run to the nearest phone and call an ambulance.
The Dr. looked at it but did nothing. The next day I was talking to one of the paramedics. He said she was in so much pain that they gave he morphine on the way.
I guess there was nothing the Dr. could do but it sure seemed like he should have done something.
The crew will be able to tell, via the giveaway stethoscope.
You didn’t say what kind of physician the coach was.
He could have been a pathologist or an anesthesiologist. They never specialized in anything close to that.
Even if he were an orthopedic specialist, he may have concluded that there was nothing he could do then. (Who carries morphine with them?)
If I suffer a dislocation I sincerely hope nobody tries to touch it until I get to the ER.
Yeah. If she dislocated her patella he could have done something. But it would have opened a potential can of worms for everybody had he done so. The team, the school, everyone. By letting EMS handle it the lawyers have no where to grab hold.
I don’t know except he was young and had returned from being a missionary. I think he was taking the Sumner off in the mountains.
Unless I KNOW I can help, EMS is way more equipped to help someone in the field.
Oh, I DO stop at MVAs, but I'm really only able to "aid" or "advise".
MDs are great in the hospital, with all the staff and resources, but at the scene, what can we actually do?
Not a whole lot.
After years of connections taking the kids home to France every summer my wife decided to spend the $ and go direct San Francisco to Paris - cost 30% more - over Newfoundland a lady had a heart attack and they turned around to go back to Canada - took 2 hours to find the ladys luggage to get it off of the plane. They were 5 hours late arriving.
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