Around the Patch: Flight Service

Herring, 50, combined his professional calling with his passion for flight after earning his private pilot certificate in 2004. Since then, he has essentially created his own job description by filling in at clinics and hospitals around Arizona. Each workday, Herring flies to the runway nearest to his workplace, then either walks or on occasion thumbs a ride to the clinic.

Doctors like Herring are called locum tenens, which translates from Latin as “holding the place.” In health care, the phrase refers to physicians who fill in for other doctors on a temporary basis. While there are many locum tenens physicians in the nation, few arrive to work in a Cessna.

The airplane is both a source of joy and a necessity for reaching the remote clinics to which Herring often is called. Herring attended medical school on a scholarship that required him to practice medicine in underserved areas following graduation. Although he has fulfilled the terms of that scholarship and works occasionally at hospitals in Phoenix and its outlying suburbs, Herring is happiest when serving Arizona’s Native American communities and other rural populations that are tough to reach for doctors who must travel by car.

One of the appeals of working at remote sites is that there is no typical day. In one shift, Herring might see any condition, from the flu to acute fractures and appendicitis. He might be called on to resuscitate an infant, then treat a patient kicked by a horse. He once delivered two babies within 38 minutes at an ER in Kayenta, a small town on the Navajo Nation near the Arizona-Utah border. There is no way to predict what he’ll see in a day, but Herring says the cases often reflect the environment in which he is working. For remote populations with no access to primary care, he often deals with chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension. At a clinic near the Grand Canyon, he encounters sprained ankles, heart attacks, and patients who have fallen from cliffs.

It’s not just the job that keeps him on his toes; sometimes the toughest part of his day is landing the airplane. “Once when I was flying into Kayenta, I had to call the hospital and ask them to send out a guy to clear sheep from the end of the runway so I could land,” said Herring, laughing at the memory. Often, the runways themselves are a bit sketchy. It’s not unusual to find concrete excessively cracked, with grass sprouting through the fissures. In locations where Herring considers a functional windsock a bonus, finding avgas or a mechanic is out of the question. “I always make sure I have enough fuel to return,” said Herring. “Once, I had a minor maintenance issue and left my plane, returning later by car with a mechanic friend.”

While all this may sound stressful to some pilots, Herring said he gets totally “jazzed” by things such as livestock on runways and unexpected medical challenges. “Medicine and flying are similar,” he said. “You really don’t know anything out of med school. You need to get out there and practice medicine to really start to know what you are doing. It’s the same with flying. My private [certificate] was just a ticket to start learning. Every time I get in my airplane, I learn something new.”

The patients leave the most powerful impact on this selfless doctor. “I have met the most amazing people on the reservations,” he says. “I am deeply impressed by the resilience of the Navajo and their culture. It is an honor to do what I do.”