Dr. Stan Lee’s flight from Boston to Paris became decidedly less comfortable when a frantic call came over the PA system looking for urgent medical assistance in the seventh row. Lee, a community diagnostic radiologist from Newton, who was safely seated in 32A, did not flinch at the announcement until his 9-year-old son made a large show of waving his hands and pointing emphatically toward his Dad.
“Billy, daddy is not that kind of doctor,” the now diaphoretic Dr. Lee whispered to his eldest as he frantically tried to recall the steps from his last BLS re-certification 12 years ago. This was under the watchful guise of his wife Maureen who, briefly looking up from her Kindle, was becoming increasingly intrigued as to how her husband intended to handle this situation.
Lee, who is quick to point out that he is in fact a physician at neighborhood cocktail parties and barbecues, was suddenly regretting ignoring the quarterly emails from the credentialing committee regarding all hospital staff being comfortable with basic first aid. Ultimately, his efforts to slow play the situation paid off when an x-ray technician seated in the fifteenth row popped up to offer her services to the ailing passenger.
