Airplane rescues, it seems, are becoming old hat for Eric Topol. Just hours after delivering a keynote address at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's annual conference in New Orleans on Tuesday, Topol, on a plane bound for Houston, diagnosed a patient with atrial fibrillation using his iPhone enabled AliveCor heart monitor, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. It was the second time in 17 months Topol had helped a patient on a plane; in the earlier incident, he used AliveCor's iPhoneECG to diagnose a patient having a heart attack.
"I'm starting to think that these devices would be well-suited for being carried on planes," Topol told the Union-Tribune. "It's a simple way to get information and transmit it. … I guess this is really a sign-of-the-times about how useful these mobile medical devices can be."
The newspaper has also reported that Topol will appear on "The Colbert Report" on March 26.