Can interventional cardiologists speed in an emergency?

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Kind of a random question but I know interventional cards guys often need to live relatively close to the hospital in the case of an emergent stent. Just wondering if these doctors are protected by the law and allowed to speed during an emergency? Has anyone ever faced this kind of a situation? Just been wondering for awhile and thought I would post to find out!

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of course not. that makes no sense. if you need to speed, you probably should sleep in the hospital during call.

Originally Posted by Dawkter

Kind of a random question but I know interventional cards guys often need to live relatively close to the hospital in the case of an emergent stent. Just wondering if these doctors are protected by the law and allowed to speed during an emergency? Has anyone ever faced this kind of a situation? Just been wondering for awhile and thought I would post to find out!

There was an interventional cardiologist awhile back who posted that he routinely got speeding tickets when he got called in for STEMI. He would take the ticket, go to court and it got thrown out every time when the judge heard the story.

Infarct is right though that you should probably live closer...

You are not legally protected, but some cops might let u off...or some judges. In general for a STEMI you shouldn't need to speed because remember, you can't cath the patient until the nurses and techs are there and have set up the cath lab...and the ER docs can start doing some of the stuff...put in patient's IV, foley cath, draw labs, etc. and start talking to patient and family. If you live reasonably close to the hospital you shouldn't need to speed.

Unrelated to cards but a family friend of mine is a retina surgeon and told a story how she was on call one night, got an emergency call to the hospital and was pulled over for doing ~15 over on the interstate at like 2am. She show'd the cop her badge and page, he confirmed and then she was given a 2 motorcycle cop escort to the hospital. She said she was going about 110 on the freeway and was having trouble keeping up! (True story)

Again, not cards but a similar situation... One of my best friends dad was a vascular surgeon while we were growing up. He was taking call from home and was called in for something or other that was relatively emergent. He got pulled over on the way in to the hospital for doing like 10-20 over and explained the situation, showed his badge/page, etc... the cops response was, "I'll write a fast ticket".

do you people expect to be above the law because you're doctors? if you cant make it to the hospital, you probably need to take in house call.