It's a side theme running through the thread, but I am slightly disturbed by the confidence displayed by some paramedical/nursing types in their ability to diagnose, resuscitate and provide care to the exclusion of involving an available physician on a flight.
While many EMTs are very slick with prehospital management, it is important to recognise the boundary of your skills, competence and expertise.
The trouble with the world is that the ignorant are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
I was formally an 'EMT' and at that time I thought I was pretty clever as I could follow ALS algorithms exactly, bash in the emergency drugs at the right time, push the button on the defib, do lots of vital signs, do what I had been taught, and manage pretty much any presentation with great confidence at the prehospital level. I knew what to do and could tell other people what they should do as well.
I am now a surgical doctor (and have done general/emergency residency previously) and in retrospect I had no idea just how superficial my understanding, diagnostic acumen and treatment abilities were when I was doing 'EMT' things.
I predominantly do surgical things only now, but still manage acutely unwell patients on the ward when they crash. And I am still privy to a variety of junior staff (with qualification not dissimilar to mine when I was an EMT) managing emergencies, and witness them telling others what to do, with great confidence, except now I know that much of what is touted with confidence is plain unhelpful or even dangerous.
Of course you will find physicians who are very stale with their skills of emergency management, resus and the like. Everyone has stories of an elderly physician doing something silly in a resus. I might say that the reverse is frequently true as well. And out of date physicians will hopefully defer to the initial stabilisation that can be offered by EMTs/ some nurses and the like, and offer their skills at diagnosis and management as appropriate.
But it is staggeringly arrogant for EMT/nursing staff to presume, sight unseen, that their knowledge and skill resuscitating patients is superior to physicians - and that the latter shouldn't even be consulted. And the patient may well be the victim.
Be careful! As a private pilot (for fun) I wouldn't presume I have the skills of a airline pilot. And as an EMT you might just find that an experienced physician rather exceeds your ability to manage any one of the potential fatal complications of an inflight cardiac emergency.