The announcement blares through the plane, and I flinch. “If you are a doctor, please come to the last row!”

The attending’s face is pale, sweat beading his forehead.

“Nec fasc,” he says quietly.

We stare at the old woman’s leg, raw redness creeping up the flesh, and know that she’s running out of time.

She’d come in only a few hours ago with her daughter, complaining of pain in her leg. She had a low-grade fever, and was just generally uncomfortable. The raw spot on her calf was an angry color, and I didn’t like the look of it. Sending out the order for a CT scan, I took out a pen and drew a blue line around the irregular circle.

We’ve just seen the results on the CT scan — air pockets under the skin, one classic effect of the flesh-eating bacteria, and the crimson area on her leg is much wider than it was an hour ago. Infection is creeping upward, underneath her skin, past the mark I drew not long ago, and it needs to be stopped.

Necrotizing fasciitis isn’t common, but it’s something we encounter every so often. The strangest part is that it’s caused by a fairly common bacteria found on our skin. Only sometimes does it enter the bloodstream — this can be through the smallest of cuts — and wreak havoc on the body. Because nec fasc can kill the body’s organs within hours. I’ve seen it before.

“Antibiotics with antitoxin. Now,” I say.

“Now!”

“What?” The reddened limb vanishes, replaced by a chubby fist pulling on my sheitel, and my husband’s urgent voice.

“Ayala, you need to wake up now!”

“Wha—? What’s going on?” The dream fades into nothingness, and as I rub the bleariness from my eyes, Yaakov’s face swims into focus. Yitzy is too busy shredding my sheitel to do more than drool, but Yaakov looks anxious.

“I think something’s going on in the back of the plane. A couple of stewardesses went rushing down the aisle.” I stare at him.

“I should worry about the stewardesses tripping? I mean, they’re pretty experienced fliers, and—”

“No. One of them was muttering something about a lady who isn’t feeling well. I think there’s some kind of medical emergency happening.”

Oh.

I really, really hope not.

This is one of my very precious four weeks off, and we’re using the time to fly to the East Coast for a short summer vacation. I had a full shift yesterday, culminating in a frenzy of packing, last-minute cleaning, and racing around to complete the errands that never seem to happen on a day-to-day basis. I’d collapsed on the plane, so drained that even the undersized, made-to-twist-your-spine-out-of-place vinyl seat couldn’t get in the way of my nap. And now this. Or maybe not. I don’t hear anything about an emergency. Maybe someone just lost something.

“Is there a doctor on the plane?” The announcement blares through the plane, and I flinch. “If you are a doctor, please come to the last row!”

I don’t see any of my fellow passengers admitting to any medical knowledge, so I know it’s my call. As I stride as quickly as possible to the back of the plane, a tall, balding man pushes past me, almost knocking me into the lap of a teenage girl. There’s no apology as he rushes to the last row.

The stewardess, who’s bending over a panicky middle-aged woman, looks up to see me and the man, waiting to help. Her gaze, I can’t help but notice, turns immediately to the man.

“We have a woman with chronic heart failure. She needs oxygen, but she left her oxygen tanks on the bottom of the plane. All we have is this first aid kit.”

She shoves the first aid kit towards him, and I wonder if she sees what I see: a glimmer of uncertainty in his face.

“Excuse me,” I say to the man. “Are you a doctor?”

There’s a pause, and then: “I work in the medical field,” he answers smoothly.

Not a doctor, then.

“What exactly do you do?” Is he even qualified to make medical decisions?

A longer pause.

“I’m an OR technician,” he says. I don’t know if the stewardess knows what that is, but at least she realizes he’s not a doctor, and she turns to me.

“I’m an ER doctor,” I inform everyone. It’s not that I’m excited about dealing with chronic heart failure, but clearly I’m the only one with experience. After listening to her medical history, I decide that since the woman is not symptomatic, she’ll be fine for now. There’s no need to make an emergency landing. And, I think to myself, if she needs oxygen, we can probably use an overhead oxygen mask from the plane. The would-be doc returns to his seat, and I’m left worrying for the rest of the flight, which is thankfully uneventful.

But this type of scenario is more common than the medical world cares to admit.

I’ve watched an attending pay more attention to a first-year male resident than to the opinion of a veteran third-year female resident. Okay, that is less common, but it happens.

I’ve seen the surprise in people’s eyes when I tell them I’m a doctor.

“Not a nurse?” they invariably blurt out, as if maybe I’ve mistaken my own profession.

I’ve been called ‘nurse’ more times than I can count by patients and other medical personnel, despite a prominent nametag that says ‘Dr.’ and the fact that I introduce myself as Dr. Rubin (a bit of a giveaway?).

In some female-dominated medical departments, like OB-GYN, this isn’t a problem. In the ER and out in the world, the subtle bias is there. The world can tout women’s rights and freedom, claiming it’s as self-evident as the air we breathe — but it isn’t. The same world is rife with examples of disrespect toward female professionals, and I’ve been on the short end of that. We women are fortunate to be allowed to work in this country, to earn money to support our families — but I put no trust in the hollow movement of equality.

I think of this when I’m back home, after our far-too-short break. The Shabbos table is set, candles shining on a scene of tranquil beauty. It’s been a hard day as usual, because when you’re juggling a baby, work, and cooking and cleaning, it always is. But there is also my favorite storebought cake on the counter (“You are not making dessert,” Yaakov told me firmly), a bouquet of red roses gracing the table, and the heartfelt card that accompanied them, now safely tucked away.

When Yaakov comes home from shul, he sings Eishes Chayil, smiling at me as he cradles Yitzy in his arms, and I know — and I know that he knows — that I am a source of blessing in my home. I think of my female colleagues, demanding a respect at work and an “equality” in home life that they know is sometimes grudgingly given, and I acknowledge my riches. Jewish women don’t need to demand recognition and respect. In our world, we have it.

Because problems fade when we’re flying high.

And we don’t even need to be on a plane.

The characters in this series are composites; all the stories are true.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 903)