In a scenario that seems right out of the Twilight Zone, a female African-American doctor on a recent Delta flight was trying to provide medical attention to a fellow passenger when flight attendants asked (multiple times) to see her medical credentials.
News report video
Here is a video of the news report from Boston 25.
If this sounds familiar…
If this sounds familiar, it’s because THIS ALREADY HAPPENED ON A DELTA FLIGHT!
(SEE ALSO: Delta to black woman doctor onboard: “Sorry sweetie, we’re looking for ACTUAL doctors”)
In a twist of irony, Dr. Stanford had recently attended a conference on medical bias where she had interviewed Dr. Tamika Cross, who was the doctor in the first incident on Delta back in October 2017. Delta had actually changed their policy to no longer require flight attendants to ask for medical credentials, but I guess someone didn’t get the memo.
As always, there are 2 sides to every story (Yeah I’m lookin at you Miss I tweeted about AA stealing my luggage when really it was all my fault), and it’s possible that we’ll hear more information forthcoming in the next few days
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Why are you taking the time to stir the pot on “racial bias” on Boarding Area? This lousy article demonizes people that did nothing wrong, regardless of a policy update, it’s not WRONG. Consider writing for CNN.
The question is would they have asked for the credentials of a white male doctor. If the answer is no (and we haven’t heard any stories of that happening) then yes, they did something wrong.
Clearly we cannot count on personal judgement to determine who is and is not a physician. I am a black female physician and I will continue to assist if asked because there is a passenger who needs my assistance. I just take a deep breath before I identify myself silently remind myself that the response I get from the flight attendants may offend me, but I need to get beyond that if it happens. I do think that we could put all of this to rest if we would just have physicians register with the airline ahead of time. Then the flight attendants not only know that you are a physician, but they know where you are on the plane and come get you without the overhead page.
Thank you for being willing to get up out of your seat and help a passenger. I appreciate that you would step up to help others in a time of need. It would be easier to simply do nothing, especially since there is no pay for this kind of volunteerism.