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Flight Risk: The Highs and Lows of Life as a Doctor at Heathrow Airport, by Stephanie Green

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liralen's review

3.0

Green came by her Heathrow job more or less by accident: having trained as a doctor for a second career, she quickly found that she wasn't interested in the stress of chasing prestige up the career ladder, and she opted instead for a role at Heathrow.

This is a bit reminiscent of [a:Ben MacFarlane|2955515|Ben MacFarlane|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]'s books—familiar role with unfamiliar details. Working at Heathrow meant that Green was unlikely to see the same patient more than once; it also meant that she spent a huge proportion of her working hours conducting or reading X-rays:

Our work on TB diagnosis came under the Immigration Act too. This was probably the largest part of my role because anyone coming into the UK for more than six months from a country where TB was endemic, say on a work or student visa or as an immigrant, had to be X-rayed, and there were X-ray machines at every terminal. … If an incoming passenger brought a recent chest X-ray that clearly came from a hospital and confirmed they were healthy, that was also acceptable, although we had to be careful because there was quite a black market in ‘clear’ X-rays in certain territories. Sometimes they were of such poor quality I couldn’t see what the hell was going on, and at other times and X-ray would have a date on it but no name, so it might have been a snapshot of any old bones. It was well known to us that in parts of some countries you could pick and choose your X-rays from an array of different ones, all hanging up on a stall like a row of tea towels, so these we treated with a degree of scepticism. On more than one occasion I had men present me with X-rays on which I could clearly see the breast shadow of a woman. (54)

The writing is nothing outside the ordinary, but 'airport doctor' is a new one to me, and the material is a good lot of fun.

bookswithbre's review

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3.0

Flight Risk was a highly interesting read. I must admit, I've always been fascinated with the medical world (likely sparked by my early adoration for Grey's Anatomy) and Flight Risk was the first medical memoir that I've ever read.

I had no idea that a job like the one that Dr Green held at Heathrow Airport existed, and, even now, it doesn't exist in the same way. Dr Green is such a strong and determined woman, the way that she could achieve anything that she set her mind to and make it seem almost easy, whilst still being vulnerable and empathetic.

Dr Green tells various notable stories that she and her colleagues encountered whilst working at Heathrow, each unique, and some upsetting. The opening chapter of the book informs the reader that each month, there is an average of one on-board death. That is around twelve deaths on planes per year, and this is just the aircraft landing at Heathrow. I didn't have a single clue how common this was, whether that be naive of me, it was shocking to read.

Definitely worth the read if you're interested in airports or medicine - I learnt so much from reading Flight Risk.

missymo55's review

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3.0

Fairly interesting but quite mundane. No real gripping stories. An interesting insight into immigration and mental health however.
An easy pick up, put down read where you don’t really need to concentrate for long, like an airport.

myevergrowingbookshelf's review against another edition

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2.0

I love a good medical memoir, and it’s been a while since I’ve read one, so I went into this quite excited, and I won’t lie, it didn’t really live up to my expectations I’m afraid!