Addressing a community need: assessing the confidence and attitude of senior medical students in responding to in-flight emergencies

Traveling physicians will likely be called for medical assistance on board. In-flight medical emergencies (IMEs) are common and occur in a complex environment with limited medical resources. This study evaluated senior medical students’ willingness, understanding, confidence, and attitudes toward IMEs and their willingness to respond to them. This cross-sectional study was conducted among senior medical students in the College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These medical students were sent a self-administered online questionnaire, which consisted of basic demographic data, a survey to evaluate IME experiences, and a 10-item questionnaire to assess the attitude of students. Among 302 medical students, 52.3% were males, while 66.9% were over 22 years old. The prevalence of students who attended life support training was 62.6%, which was highly significant among the 5th-year level (p = 0.001). Neutral attitudes were found in most students (87.7%); 4.6% had positive attitudes, while 7.6% had negative ones. Being at the 5th-year level and having previous participation in life support training were associated with an increased attitude toward in-flight medical emergencies. The attitude of senior medical students toward IMEs was less than desired. However, the attitude was better among 5th-year medical students who attended training courses on managing IMEs. Thus, participation in training courses influenced the willingness to manage such cases. Subsequently, longitudinal studies are needed to extract more data on the knowledge and confidence of medical students toward IMEs.