Stuff They Don't Teach You In Medical School: Inflight Emergencies

This is part of a series on medical school advice. To see the previous entry, click here.

Okay, so you don't really follow CPR guidelines, but what does he know? He's just some dumb kid.
(What's that you say? Not as dumb as the guy who Photoshopped this in the first place? SHADDAP.)

A few posts ago I wrote about how I single-handedly saved a beautiful woman from her heart exploding aboard a plane before making wild love to her and being dragged upstairs to the crew bedroom by about ten air stewardesses. Wait what? That didn't happen? Damn. I knew drinking coffee before bed would give me crazy dreams. Anyway,what I DID do was help a senior doctor resuscitate and take care of this elderly lady who had fainted after feeling dizzy on a long-haul flight. She had drunk more wine than she was used to before going to sleep.

I was woken up by the doctor's wife telling me that this lady was nearly unconscious. Halfway through rubbing my eyes, I remembered that I was a doctor and my brain started screaming the resus mnemonic at me. The air stewardess passed by, and I called her over and told her urgently "Get me a cup of water please".

"No, not water." Came the authoritative voice of Dr Baldy (not me, the other senior doctor. Imagine the rapper Pitbull except as a doctor. Wait, actually, that would make him Dr Evil. Never mind. --Editor).

I stopped. Both me and the stewardess looked at him.

"Bring her a cup of 7-Up instead. Just a small one," he said, and the stewardess nodded.

As she ran off, I asked Dr Baldy what type of doctor he was. "Oh, I'm a GP," he said. "What's with the 7-Up?" I followed. He proceeded to explain to me that in his experience as a GP, when people were feeling nauseous (like they're going to vomit), giving them plain water would often make them vomit, whereas a small quantity of a sugary carbonated drink actually helped fight the feeling and calmed them down somewhat. "7-Up seems to work the best, in my experience," he added. "I don't know why, but a lot of being a GP is working from experience".

He was right. The lady felt better and less thirsty, and she didn't throw up.

Later after the flight landed, I thanked him for the tip. "Any other last tips?" I asked him.

"Just one. Don't work in the NHS." He winked, put his arm around his wife, and headed for his connecting flight.

I started giggling like a schoolgirl going "ZOMG I WANT TO BE JUST LIKE HIM" over and over again picked up my bags and also left. Who knew 7-Up could be so useful?

So kids, the next time you feel sick from catching a virus/eating bad food/reading this blog, remember - SIP SOME 7-UP, NOT WATER. See? Who said reading my blog wasn't educational?

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Emergency at 35,000 Feet

 This is only a slight exaggeration of what actually happened. No, really.

Every doctor dreams about it - the emergency aboard an airplane, the life-or-death scenario where medical attention is not available and a stranger's life literally rests in your hands. Some doctors fear the responsibility; others wish it would happen to them. Older doctors are the best suited for the job; they stay calm under pressure and softly call out orders to the flight crew, so much so that other passengers don't realise anything is wrong at all. But younger doctors (like a certain ridiculously handsome blogger we all know COUGHCOUGH --Editor) immediately hear the theme song from E.R. blaring in their minds, pull their shirts open to reveal Superman costumes underneath and start shouting out orders to air stewardesses who are busy trying not to fall in love with them.

Okay, so that didn't actually happen.

I boarded a Malaysia Airlines flight out of Heathrow last week. I was really tired and after kicking a little old lady out of my seat (she mistook seat number 56 for 59. Somebody was a naughty girl when she was young. AHAHA geddit geddit?* --Editor) I said hello to the people sitting next to me. My neighbour was a sweet old Scottish lady (let's call her Mrs McHaggis**) and next to her were a British Asian couple (the gentleman was also bald. Such a sexy man. You hear that ladies? BALD IS SEXAY. --Ed.) whose female half kept chatting away to Mrs McHaggis. Shortly afterwards the flight took off and the air stewardess came over to ask for my number give us our headphones, and I fell asleep.

I was woken up in the middle of the night by someone shaking my shoulder. It was dark in the cabin, everyone was asleep, and only the ghostly glow of the nighttime cabin lights illuminated the plane. Everyone was asleep. Then I heard the Asian wife say, "This lady's not well." I turned to see Mrs McHaggis lying limp in her chair, her mouth hanging open and her eyes rolling.

I immediately snapped to attention. My mind was filled with heroic images of me calming Mrs McHaggis down, calling the flight attendant, ordering the Asian couple to vacate their seats and place pillows underneath Mrs McHaggis's feet to elevate her legs, then receiving thunderous applause as Mrs McHaggis came back to life and several starstruck air stewardesses dragged me to their crew bedroom upstairs to reward me.

Then the bald guy sitting to my right brushed past me and did exactly everything in the above paragraph.

I blinked. Wait, this was supposed to be my fantasy! But the bald dude hadn't got the memo. He called the air stewardess (who was REALLY cool under pressure and had already brought an oxygen mask and canister), laid Mrs McHaggis down across all three seats, and asked ME to raise her legs.

I asked him if he was a doctor. He said yes, and that his wife was a first aider. I blinked again.

What were the odds of sitting between TWO doctors AND a first aider on a plane - and then having a medical emergency??

And as if that wasn't enough - the airplane hit turbulence.

Life hates me.

Once again the stewardess came to our rescue and found us seats on the double. Mrs McHaggis's pulse was 40 and she managed to stammer that she was on propranalol and thyroxine. Dr Baldy (the other guy, not me) and I took turns staying with her and giving her oxygen, and we learnt that she had a history of fainting and dizziness - this, coupled with the cabin's unusually warm temperature and Mrs McHaggis's many glasses of wine, probably caused her dizziness.

Two hours later, she was feeling better but was still groggy. I heard her mumble something and decided it was time to wake her. I leaned forward, signaled the air stewardess, and spoke softly in Mrs McHaggis's ear, "Hello madam, don't wor--"

With a nice loud clap that echoed throughout the cabin, her arm whipped around and slapped me straight off the seat.

Seriously. What is it with women and slapping me?!

When I looked up, I saw the air stewardess standing above me, furiously trying to hide a smile. SHE actually helped ME up, almost carrying me at one point. Seriously not macho.

When Mrs McHaggis regained consciousness, she had no idea she had given me an Epic Backhand (and I sure as hell wasn't about to tell her). She thanked me and Dr Baldy profusely, and the flight purser came over to give us first class packages as tokens of appreciation. After the flight landed, the flight crew had all learned my name and thanked us personally as we left. Some of them even applauded (even though I really didn't do as much as Dr Baldy).

And that, kids, is how I met your mo-- uh, how I had my first airplane emergency. Not nearly as heroic as I thought it would be, but when you're a freshly-graduated junior doctor, you're rather glad to have a senior doctor around to run the show. And the Malaysia Airlines air crew was professional, calm, and well-trained. Oh and Mrs McHaggis? We exchanged emails, and even promised to meet up. Hey, maybe Mister McHaggis will turn out to be some rich lord or something. I can dream, can't I?

*She mistook 6 for 9. AHAHA geddit? No? For Pete's sake, ask a teenager. You're slower than I am! (or less perverted)
**Obviously not her real name. Though it would be EFFING AWESOME if it was.

In Search Of Unprotected Text - Another Blogger Bites The Dust (Or Does He?)

(Apologies in advance for those of you arriving at this post from Google expecting a discreet dating service or Thailand travel agents. Not that I can't tell you about both, including which massage parlours to avoid - gonorrhoea's a bitch. --Editor)

If you've been reading the comments on my last post, you'll have heard that the Unprotected Text blog has mysteriously disappeared without explanation. There's a comment on my last post by an anonymous visitor announcing the worst:

I've (sic) very sorry to report that the author of 'Unprotected Text' blog tragically died earlier this week in a road accident. His family requested the blog be taken down, and this was done so in accordance to their wishes. My thoughts are with them this week.

A couple of other commenters, who seem to know Unprotected Text's author and refer to him by name (which the above bad-news bear doesn't), have found no sign of this being the case. I hope he's okay - sometimes shit just happens to bloggers and they have to stop blogging. (Or, as in my case, you're so lazy you have sloths protesting outside your door for putting their species to shame. --Ed.)

This reminds me of the Dr Crippen death hoax last year, which I covered in this post, and which was revealed when Dr Crippen suddenly came back to life, becoming the world's first zombie doctor. The culprit was a disgruntled nurse who took offense at his nurse-bashing ways and took advantage of the good doctor's writer's block/holiday/meltdown. Things ended well there though (well, except that I slaved for hours on Photoshop to create this masterpiece for him and he didn't even mention it. Ungrateful old man. All I wanted was a little love, daddy! *cocks gun*)

Any news on Unprotected Text's status would be appreciated. Coming up: Christopher Lee FINA-friggin-LLY gets knighted, and I reveal my fetish for old British men. Completely unrelated posts, of course. Cough.

Look at this shit! I slaved for hours to create this Da Vinci-shaming
artistic brilliance! What's that you say? Your Indonesian maid could

do better and she just learnt to use Photoshop yesterday? Oh screw you.

The Angry Medic: Comic Relief Edition

I happen to think I am funny. I persist in this belief, despite the fact that the comments box on my previous post (which I happen to think was quite funny) has not exploded with praise and adulation, and despite the fact that when I go on stage in a comedy play I usually get off stage either by being yanked off by a horrified show manager or accompanied by a torrent of rotten vegetables thrown from the audience. But as a funny medic, it should come as no surprise that my favourite charity is Comic Relief.

Therefore in support of Comic Relief, I urge you to spend a few pounds to give children in need a better future by buying 'Shaggy Blog Stories', a collection of 100 short humorous pieces from the UK blogosphere, put together by prominent blogger Troubled Diva in just 7 days. All profits from the sale of this book will be donated to the Comic Relief charity.

For the next week, my blog banner will link directly to the Shaggy Blog Stories website. The full list of bloggers featured can be found here. More information about Comic Relief and its signature event, Red Nose Day, can be found by clicking on the picture of the beautiful ladies above (mind where you click, you perverts. --Editor).

Comments under my previous post here please. Have a great weekend!