Medical Events during Airline Flights

To the Editor: In their review article on medical events during commercial airline flights (April 4 issue),¹ Gendreau and DeJohn underplay the threat of lawsuits and report that “no litigation has been brought to date against a physician who has rendered assistance during an in-flight medical event.”At the conclusion of my first year of surgical residency, as a licensed physician, I provided care to a woman during a transatlantic flight. This unfortunate woman had severe asthma and had a mid-flight attack that was fatal. I, along with a physician and a nurse from England and members of the flight . . .