Profile: Doctor

Steffen Lyduch works as a doctor for Bupa International and is a specialist in aerospace medicine and air travel. He has been a doctor for more than 25 years and also works as surgeon captain in the Danish air force and as medical director for a range of airlines. He studied at the prestigious Brooks school of aerospace medicine in Texas and has worked and trained with the US marines

Bupa International gives you direct and immediate access to a doctor. We are six doctors in the Medical Centre and we are all fully mobile and can work from remote locations. I need to be able to work online within minutes of receiving a call, whether I’m in Dubai or in Brussels.

We are always at least two doctors on duty and all four of us can be summoned in case of a major emergency. We are on call 24 hours a day and have our office hours in the Medical Centre from 1pm to 6pm where we deal with all the administrative cases.

Knowing our customers’ needs

We are all tried and tested to make sure we know our customers’ needs. There is nothing that is too small for us to handle. It can have catastrophic consequences if you break a finger or an arm in a remote location in Africa. In some cases an open wound could be fatal within 24 hours if it gets infected.

Therefore, we require that all our doctors have worked far away in small destinations. It is extremely important that you have been to places like this so you understand the limitations and restrictions and can see the case from the customer’s point of view. We know what it means to be far away from home, because we have been there ourselves.

Breaking down the problems

For example, a woman calls me from Kazakhstan in the middle of the night. She is alone with her two children while her husband is working on an oil rig. One of the children has a high fever and the only doctor is miles away. The mother is very upset so I have to calm her down. I’ve got five kids myself and I know the challenges of travelling with young children. It can be a difficult situation, but if you break it down in to small steps it becomes easier to cope with.

I ask the woman about the symptoms and once you get an idea of what the child is suffering from, you can start to suggest pain-relieving medicine. We can’t treat people over the phone but we offer them counselling and advice.

Building confidence

After helping to relieve her child of high fever, I tell the mother that I will call back in exactly an hour and that she is free to call me at any point during this time if she has an urgent concern.

It breeds confidence when I call her back and we establish a lifeline where the mother knows that somebody is aware of her situation and monitoring it. By the next time I call, the child has calmed down and the mother is more relaxed. I tell what doses of medicine to use overnight and that I will call her the next morning at 8am. And the mother knows that I will stick to my promise.