Yesterday the NY Times posted a story about the increasing number of requests for physician passengers to help respond to perceived in-flight medical emergencies. While the article mentions some interesting trends and lack of data in the actual amount of medical events in domestic general and commerical aviation, we are interested in the second half of the article where the authors refer to a paper published earlier this month in JAMA. That article, by Drs. Mattison and Zeidel, discusses the challenges in responding to in-flight emergencies and the lack of standardization in airline medical kits.
This seemed like an interesting question to throw out to the Medgadget community. For our healthcare professional readers, what would you want/expect to find in a medical kit were you to respond to an in-flight emergency as a passenger? Other than an AED and other CPR essentials?
NY Times: When Doctors Are Called to the Rescue in Midflight