Well beyond the walls of their practices, physicians are still physicians. But responding to a call outside of the comfort outside of a doctor's office takes more than medical expertise, noted a recent article from Medscape.
Regardless of setting or circumstance, the following qualities define the practice of medicine at its best, according to the article:
- Resourcefulness. Whether a medical emergency occurs on an airplane or disaster erupts on the ground, first responders need to work with what they have. That could mean using one's own belt as a tourniquet as first responders did to aid victims of terror attacks in Paris and Boston, or concocting oral rehydration solution at 30,000 feet out of sugar and salt packets and bottled water.
- Teamwork. Doctors may not always have their own practice teams with them, but a collaborative mindset is a portable asset. An anesthesiologist treating a patient on a flight from Tel Aviv to Miami, for example, described the importance of working with a second volunteer, an Israeli intensive care unit nurse, to assess and manage the patient. "We never saw each other before or after; however, we worked together as if we had been on the same team for years," he told Medscape. "I still remember her, and I thank her in my mind for her invaluable help."
- Professionalism. When responding to an emergency, physicians must overcome feelings of self-doubt, sacrifice their own comfort and convenience and even wrestle with fears of being sued--with little to no time to consider the options. Those who step up do so not just to honor the Hippocratic Oath, Medscape noted, but also to aid other professionals, such as pilots and other medical personnel, in carrying out their responsibilities. Indeed, doctors who responded to the November 13 terror attacks in Paris wrote in The Lancet: "If I had to summarise the 'winning formula' in the recent tragic hours that we lived, in an orthopaedic centre of APHP [Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris], I would say that spontaneity and professionalism were the key ingredients."
To learn more:
- read the article from Medscape
- see the paper from The Lancet