Obstetrician-gynaecologist, Dr Tamika Cross, took to Facebook to express her discontent following a recent incident where she claimed flight staff on a Delta Air Lines flight refused her repeated offers to assist a sick passenger on a flight from Detroit to Houston.
She claimed her appeals to help a unresponsive passenger was met with disparaging remarks from crew members, with one saying: "oh no sweetie, put your hand down, we are looking for actual physicians".
"I tried to inform her that I was a physician but I was continually cut off by condescending remarks," she wrote in the post, which has received more than 43,000 shares.
"They paged: 'Any physician on board please press your button.' I stare at her as I go to press my button.
"She (flight attendant) said: 'Oh wow you're an actual physician?' I reply: 'Yes.'
"She said: 'Let me see your credentials. What type of doctor are you? Where do you work? Why were you in Detroit?'"
Dr Cross, who is a resident physician at the University of Texas Health Science Centre in Houston, said she was then passed over for a white man who claimed he was a doctor.
The post ended with Dr Cross saying the attendant later apologised.
Advocacy group for female doctors of colour, Artemis Medical Society, wrote a letter to the airline’s CEO, asking for an investigation to “determine if racial and gender bias by crew of Flight 945 led to rejecting the response and offer by Dr Cross to provide emergency medical care to your passenger".
A Delta Air Lines spokeswoman told the New York Daily News: "Discrimination of any kind is never acceptable.”
"We've been in contact with Dr Cross and one of our senior leaders is reaching out to assure her that we're completing a full investigation," the spokeswoman added.
