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01 Nov 2018, 10:32 am
Doctor says she was racially profiled while trying to help fellow passenger
Quote:
A doctor said she was racially profiled by two flight attendants as she aided a fellow passenger on a Delta Air Lines flight.
Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, a physician and expert in obesity medicine, told CNN she was on a flight from Indianapolis to Boston on Tuesday when a woman sitting next to her started shaking and hyperventilating.
Stanford said she was already aiding the passenger when a flight attendant came by to check the situation. According to Stanford, the flight attendant asked if she was a doctor, to which Stanford replied yes.
Stanford said she continued to stabilize the passenger when a second flight attendant came to ask for her medical license. Stanford showed the flight attendant her license. Stanford said that shortly afterward both flight attendants came back and questioned her credentials and asked if the medical license she was carrying belonged to her.
Stanford described the exchange as "bewildering."
"The validity of me as a physician is being called into question," Stanford said of the experience.
Stanford said she was able to continue looking after the sick passenger. She later decided to share what happened on social media...
The debate is not new. In 2016, Dr. Tamika Cross, an OB-GYN who is black, wrote in a Facebook post that she was discriminated against on a Delta flight when attendants refused to let her help a man that was unresponsive. Cross' post went viral, along with the hashtag #whatadoctorlookslike
After learning what happened to her colleague and friend, Cross took to Facebook again on Wednesday and posed the question "Where have we come since 2016?"
Delta said in December 2016 that it reviewed and revised its process for accepting a medical professional's help during in-flight medical emergencies. In the announcement, the airline said Cross was part of the conversation that resulted in the company doing away with a policy that required flight attendants to verify medical credentials.
"They can now secure a medical professional's help based on the volunteer's statement that he or she is a physician, physician assistant, nurse, paramedic or EMT," the airline said then.
Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, a physician and expert in obesity medicine, told CNN she was on a flight from Indianapolis to Boston on Tuesday when a woman sitting next to her started shaking and hyperventilating.
Stanford said she was already aiding the passenger when a flight attendant came by to check the situation. According to Stanford, the flight attendant asked if she was a doctor, to which Stanford replied yes.
Stanford said she continued to stabilize the passenger when a second flight attendant came to ask for her medical license. Stanford showed the flight attendant her license. Stanford said that shortly afterward both flight attendants came back and questioned her credentials and asked if the medical license she was carrying belonged to her.
Stanford described the exchange as "bewildering."
"The validity of me as a physician is being called into question," Stanford said of the experience.
Stanford said she was able to continue looking after the sick passenger. She later decided to share what happened on social media...
The debate is not new. In 2016, Dr. Tamika Cross, an OB-GYN who is black, wrote in a Facebook post that she was discriminated against on a Delta flight when attendants refused to let her help a man that was unresponsive. Cross' post went viral, along with the hashtag #whatadoctorlookslike
After learning what happened to her colleague and friend, Cross took to Facebook again on Wednesday and posed the question "Where have we come since 2016?"
Delta said in December 2016 that it reviewed and revised its process for accepting a medical professional's help during in-flight medical emergencies. In the announcement, the airline said Cross was part of the conversation that resulted in the company doing away with a policy that required flight attendants to verify medical credentials.
"They can now secure a medical professional's help based on the volunteer's statement that he or she is a physician, physician assistant, nurse, paramedic or EMT," the airline said then.
Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford works at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
