Doctors vs. Pilots

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>
> - 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.


Have you ever experienced a crisis in the air?  Having multiple systems fail
on a jet (which I've never experienced in flight but have had thrown at me
in a regional jet simulator by one of my sadistic associates) is as
unnerving and often bewildering experience as anything I've seen in medicine
and I've seen my share of "oh ****" moments.  It's about as close to the
fecal material striking the fan as one can get outside of combat or EM/CCM.
That being said, I think the comparisons between physicians and pilots have
serious limitations but there is a lot more overlap than you seem willing to
accept.

I agree that as physicians, we need to understand our own
> limitations, and like the folks on the 'pointy end of the spear' (troops in
>  combat),
> we also need to know how to compensate for those limitations  when the
> chips are down. To denigrate well founded studies on fatigue factors  and
> critical decision making just because it was not done on physicians is to
>  claim
> that we, as physicians, are somehow supra human....There in  lies the open
> path for folks outside our profession to further regulate  our actions 'for
> the good of the patients.'
>

Well said Dr. Krin.



-- 
Stephen Richey, CRT

"It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems....Our responsibility
is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass
them on."- Richard Feynman

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