If you were suffering a medical emergency on a flight and a doctor came to your aid, you’d almost certainly welcome their attention.
But what if airline crew tried to stop the doctor from helping you? That’s not a hypothetical situation; it actually happened.
As the Boston Globe reports, crew of Delta-affiliated Republic Airline asked Massachusetts General Hospital specialist Dr Fatima Cody Stanford twice to seer her medical licence before they would allow her to tend to a passenger in distress.
Her colleague, Dr Peter Theodore Masiakos, wrote on Twitter that he had assisted in several in-flight emergencies and had never been asked for his licence.
But, he noted: “I am a 50 Something, white, male pediatric surgeon.” Dr Stanford is black.
Stanford herself said that, even after she had helped the patient next to her, who was hyperventilating due to claustrophobia, a crew member asked her: “Are you really an MD?”
“No matter how many degrees I have — I have four; no matter how many residencies I’ve done — I’ve done two; no matter how many fellowships –I’ve done two of those; no matter how many years of training you’ve done as a woman of color, as someone who doesn’t fit the mold, [you face this],” Stanford told Fortune.
I can understand that the airline crew wouldn’t want a random stranger intervening, but to ask “multiple times” to see the qualifications of someone who is trying to help another passenger suggests something else is going on.
As Dr Katherine Sharkey put it: “[D]o they really think that people who *aren’t* medical professionals are clamoring to help strangers with unknown medical emergencies at 30,000 feet? I mean, is that common?!”
Footnote: The Republic Airline slogan is: “Our greatest asset:” followed by a rotating list of staff including flight attendants.
