Pittsburgh doctors provide on-call help for medical issues at 35,000 feet

PITTSBURGH — More than 50 million people will get on flights over this holiday stretch,    and Pittsburgh doctors are ready to help them all.

In a small operations center on top of a building in Oakland, there is a doctor ready to respond to mid-flight calls for help.

“In the U.S., there are actually just two centers that provide medical consultations for the vast majority of airlines,” said Dr. Christian Martin-Gill, an associate professor of emergency medicine with the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC, who is one of the doctors who mans the operations center.

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UPMC released new data Friday showing the two call centers help manage about 95 percent of in-flight medical emergencies.

The holidays are one of their busiest times.

“Whenever there are more flights in the air, its more likely we are going to be called for passengers that are sick,” Martin-Gill said.

UPMC says that, around the holidays, the center will get about 85 calls a day.

“We have physician consultations for over 17,000 in-flight medical emergencies and gate screenings every year,” Martin-Gill said.

Cox Media Group