Originally Posted by
West Coast
Robert
Out of curiosity piqued by the thread. Who would you say would be better equipped to handle an inflight medical emergency, a doctor or a paramedic?
Recognize there's a lot of variables.
As an EMT-I with 8 years of street experience (emergency, not a transport service), pilot, and volunteered myself 3 times on commercial flights...in general, under any pre-hospital/field conditions, airborne or otherwise: ER doc w/field experience (e.g. HEMS flight physician) > HEMS flight nurse/paramedic > paramedic (any type) > ER doc > EMT with emergency experience (not transport service) > ER nurse > everyone else. That is a fairly large generalization and YMMV quite a bit. Mostly it comes down to whatever is the strongest combination of medical skill combined with a level of comfort working outside of the hospital environment. I've personally seen some otherwise outstanding ER personnel completely brain lock when trying to execute in the back of an ambulance.