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Fri May 8 18:23:40 BST 2009

The next person I hear comparing doctors and pilots will be the subject of much abuse. I've had enough. There are a few similarities between the two professions, but there are many major points which simply do not match. Here is how I see it:

- Pilots do indeed endeavour to get one from A to B but, unlike doctors, they never have to do so when one presents already in a spiralling dive downwards towards Z, which began without prior warning.

- Passengers may only board their plane if they arrive for a flight well before it takes off. Patients, on the other hand, often first meet their doctor when they are already some way on their clinical journey to obstructed-airway-land or peritoneal-abscess-airport...

- Pilots and their airlines may well be relied upon to get MOST of you to your destination, but often some "organs" will be missing (i.e. your luggage) and there are many layers of protection in the way to guarantee that the pilots will be spared any involvement in the resulting aftermath. They will not even be personally informed that some of your stuff has gone missing, perhaps forever. And it seems that the compensation you get for missing luggage is limited rather more strictly than what you could expect should a surgeon "misplace" an organ...

- Pilots receive their “patients” on the planned day of travel. These patients will have been screened and vetted by many resources (security, visa check, etc.) but to the ED patients present "as is".

- When things begin to go wrong for pilots, they have a couple of colleagues seated with them, ready to assist and support them. And, even thus assisted, when things still go wrong, they may well end up losing significantly more than one patient...

- Isn't it nice for pilots that they only have to fly one plane at a time, unlike, say, an EP or surgical intensivist who often has more than one patient on the go at one time, perhaps in different wards.

- Take a GP/FP. He/she must "pilot" the patient through many little crashes, until the inevitable final one. There is no mechanism whereby “defective” patients can be replaced by newer models to facilitate easier piloting...

- Finally, the actual proof that even pilots know the real truth of this ridiculous comparison: How often do doctors find themselves taking care of pilots with their chest pains, headaches, etc.? Pilots always see doctors when they need medical assistance. They know whom they can trust! There is no-one but us. But doctors can travel on trains, buses, ships...
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Doctors vs. Pilots