8 years ago, David Slusky's wife went into labor.

It was the middle of the night and they needed to get to the hospital, but they lived in Philadelphia

and didn't have a car.

So they did what they do any other night they needed to ride.

They called an Uber.

And my wife said, just play it cool.

Don't tell him I'm in labor.

Maybe he won't figure it out.

When the driver took an unexpected route to the hospital, David became a little bit alarmed.

I had this moment of, this is the worst night to be kidnapped by your Uber driver.

Driver then goes past Spruce, which goes the wrong way, and then turns left on Pine.

And then turned to us when stopped and said, I have three children at home.

I understand your situation.

Pine is a lot smoother than Locust.

And took us to the hospital and we had our daughter, who's now eight and a half.

And so that got me thinking, is this a common story or people using ride sharing

as part of our healthcare transport system?

That night, David Slusky got a healthy new baby daughter and the seed of a new research project.

A few years later, Slusky, by then an economist and professor at the University of Kansas,

came back to those questions about how people get to the hospital when they're in a rush.

The answers show just how limited our thinking has been when it comes to the basic act of

getting medical care quickly. From the Freakonomics Radio Network, welcome to Freakonomics MD.

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