Never Say Sell

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In 1995 Dr. Angus Wallace boarded a flight and expected a routine trip, consuming peanuts and perusing the SkyMall magazine. Midway through the flight, a call came across the loudspeaker: “Is there a doctor on board?”

Dr. Wallace did what any doctor would do: He offered to help in any way that he could. A 39-year-old woman had fallen off her motorcycle on the way to the airport and developed a potentially lethal condition. Chest percussion and auscultation were rendered ineffective because of the noise from the plane's engines. Dr. Wallace and a junior resident on board, Dr. Tom Wang, sprang into action.

A scalpel and a 14-gauge catheter were available in the aircraft medical kit. (Wallace) created a chest drain with these items along with a coat hanger (made into a trocar for the catheter), a bottle of Evian water (with two holes punched in the cap for an underwater seal drain), oxygen tubing (to attach the catheter to the drain), and Sellotape (to seal the catheter to the drain). Xylocard (100 mg of lignocaine in 10 mL) was the local anesthetic, and the disinfectant for the introducer was a bottle of five-star brandy! As soon as the drain was connected, the patient was operated upon in her seat. Air was released from the pleural cavity, and within 5 minutes she had almost fully recovered. She settled down to enjoy her meal and the in-flight entertainment.

There is no better analogy for the way we should think about business development in the context of expert ...