Delta flight crew asked if there was a doctor on board. They got the surgeon general.

When the flight staff of Delta flight 1827 needed a doctor, they got one: The "nation's doctor."

On Wednesday Jerome Adams, the U.S. surgeon general, tweeted that Delta staff on his flight to Jackson, Mississippi, asked if there was a doctor on board to assist in a medical emergency.

"Why yes - yes there was," he recounted in the tweet. "I was glad to be able to assist!"

Delta spokesman Trebor Banstetter said in an email statement that "Prior to takeoff, Delta flight 1827 from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta returned to the gate following a customer illness. Medical assistance was provided by the U.S. Surgeon General who worked with our flight crew to aid the customer."

The condition of the passenger was not immediately clear, though Adams tweeted "patient doing well." Neither the doctor nor the airline revealed what the passenger's medical issue was.

The department of Health and Human services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An anesthesiologist, Adams was previously Indiana's health commissioner, and in recent years is best known for his response to an HIV outbreak that left 181 people infected in a rural Indiana county. He had also worked to tamp down panic in the United States over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Bernstein reported.

According to the Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion Ledger, Adams was headed to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson to discuss the opioid epidemic with a panel of experts and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, who praised the doctor for his good deed.