Bizarre Encounters

"This is the Westin at the airport, Doctor Oppenheim. A guest has cut off his ear and would like to see a doctor.”

“I can’t sew an ear back in a hotel room,” I explained. “You should send him to the Centinella E.R.” This seemed to satisfy him, and he hung up.

This call arrived at 1:05 a.m. After some nervous minutes hoping he wouldn’t call again, I went back to sleep.

In fiction, the doctor would make the housecall and have a bizarre encounter. Bizarre encounters are more fun to read about than experience, so I work hard to avoid them. Before agreeing to a visit, I talk to the guest, so I can detect drunks, drug abusers, and the mentally ill. Medical science has no antidote for alcohol and, despite what you see in the movies, no injection will pacify a disruptive crazy person. I regularly assure hotel employees that it’s OK to call the police when a guest is out of control. Violent behavior isn’t necessary. 

Now and then I answer a sad call after a tragedy such as the death of a spouse or child. Relatives regularly beg for something to “put her to sleep,” but (again, despite the movies) no such drug exists. A general anesthetic works, but it’s risky to use one in a housecall as Michael Jackson’s doctor learned. I respond to these calls and usually hand over a tranquilizer, but mostly I sit at the bedside listening and delivering sympathy.  

Laying Over

In the old days, airlines called me directly to care for crew laying over in Los Angeles. I enjoyed those visits because patients are mostly young and rarely seriously ill.

Since then they have given responsibility to an independent agency which contracts with a national housecall service. The housecall service, needless to say, calls me. I collect the same fee, but it costs the airlines triple what they once paid. I am too old to question their logic.

Hotels compete to put up crew, offering discounts. Always searching for a better deal, airlines often change places. Long ago they stuck to lodgings near the airport eight miles away. In another mysterious deterioration from former times, crew now mostly lay over at wildly distant hotels. 

During my latest visit, I traveled to the Long Beach Hilton, thirty-five miles away, to care for a Virgin-Australia flight attendant with an earache. As usual, delivering care was the easiest part. Afterward I filled out a form required by the housecall service plus another form from the airline containing many identical questions followed by another airline form to determine when the flight attendant could work or return home as a passenger.  

A Youth Hostel

I answered a call from a woman at a youth hostel suffering stomach virus.

Wearing a bathrobe and looking off-color, she met me in the lobby. I followed her through a large, open-air restaurant which, although it was midnight, echoed with chatter from a youthful clientele.

She opened a door into one of the dormitories, half a dozen connected rooms crammed with bunk beds. There were no chairs, tables, or dressers, and the communal bathroom was off a distant room. Clothes and luggage littered the floor. The only difference from a male dormitory was absence of the smell of unwashed bodies.

Most beds were occupied; the inhabitants stirred when we turned on the light but did not complain. Since the patient slept in an upper bunk, I had to perform my examination while she lay on the floor, but one occupant moved aside so she could lean over for an injection.

Irritating Customer Service

As soon as I entered the Hilton lobby, a young man approached.

“I’m the assistant front desk manager” he said. "I’ll take you to Mr. Frank’s room.”

“I know how to get there.”

“He’s a VIP. We want to make sure everything goes smoothly.”

We took the elevator to the penthouse. The manager knocked. When the door opened, he announced the doctor’s arrival, waved me inside, and walked off.

It seems a no-brainer that when a hotel provides good customer service it should (a) provide the service and (b)… there is no “b.” It simply provides the service.

But hotels can’t leave well enough alone. They feel the irresistible urge to (a) provide the service and (b) MAKE SURE THE GUEST KNOWS IT!!!

For example, when I phone a hotel I want to reach my party quickly, but I’m forced to listen to something like, “Good morning. Welcome to the Del Mar, the premier choice for business and pleasure in Southern California. This is Roxanne. How may I serve your every need?” (I’m not making this up).

I’ve never understood why businesses order employees to greet everyone who passes. It’s supposed to be a friendly greeting, but no one can keep up the cheer after greeting a few hundred strangers, so I’m forced to respond to a string of bored salutations as I make my way to a guest’s room. The poor housekeepers (whose English may be limited to “good morning”) don’t look up from their work as I pass but dutifully follow orders.   

How To Choose a Good Restaurant

My wife and I went to New York for a week; that’s the reason for the absence of blog posts. I moved there after college to become a playwright, thought better of it, and attended medical school at NYU before returning to California. Although much changed, New York remains a hellish but fascinating city.

We had a good time. We were especially pleased at the consistently excellent meals. This was not always the case in previous visits, and I’m writing to explain how we achieved this.

In the past we searched internet sites such as Urban Spoon, but reading opinions on food is surprisingly unproductive. Internet restaurant reviews consist mostly of suspiciously enthusiastic praise plus the occasional rant from someone who’s had a bad experience. Even choosing restaurants with high approval percentages is a crapshoot. I have discovered a better method.

I stick to $$$ ratings. As you know, sites label restaurants as $ (cheap), $$ (moderate), and $$$ (expensive). We decided that the eternal search for superb, low-priced meals is a waste of time. By sticking to expensive restaurants, we had a delightful string of meals.

I’m sure you can poke holes in this technique, but I defy you to suggest a better one. Ironically, evidence for my discovery came in one trattoria in Little Italy where prices on the menu were lower than we were accustomed to. I wondered if its $$$ rating was a mistake. That may have been true because the food was OK but not what we had come to expect.        

The Pantomime

"Buenos dias!”

“Hello. I’m Doctor Oppenheim,”

I entered the room and listened as she explained her problem in Spanish. Most Latin Americans speak enough English to get along; in any case they travel in groups, and there’s usually someone to interpret.

“It sounds like you have a cough. What are your other symptoms?....”

She waved her hand to indicate noncomprehension and continued her recital. She was elderly and alone, a bad sign. Most people hate to stumble along in a foreign language. If I’m patient they often reveal some facility, but this lady stuck to Spanish, performing the usual pantomime, pointing to her throat and head, waving a bottle of medication under my nose.

“How many days have you been sick….?”

Another wave. What to do…. I could call her travel insurer, but interpreting over the phone is tedious. I could phone the front desk. The clerk would cheerfully agree to send up a Spanish-speaking employee, but he or she might not appear for fifteen minutes or half an hour if at all. I looked out the door, hoping to spy a housekeeper but no luck.

My spirits rose when a middle-aged lady arrived, but she merely joined the pantomime, tapping various parts of her companion’s body. Finally, an adolescent girl appeared. She had undoubtedly paid little attention during English class but had no objection to trying her hand. Her English was terrible but good enough for my purposes, and everything worked out. 

Stress Around the World

According to experts, half of our patients suffer a problem that also includes stress which a doctor must take into account. You may think this is medical science, but it’s really medical culture. “Stress” is America’s explanation for symptoms without a satisfying explanation. I rarely make the diagnosis, but patients make it for me. If a guest comes down with his third cold this month or a particularly stubborn backache or upset stomach, he’ll inform me that he’s been under stress lately.

Unlike most doctors I see patients from around the world, and it turns out that other nations don’t suffer much stress.

Germans suffer low blood pressure. It’s considered a genuine physiological disturbance. German doctors seek it out and treat it, often with medication. Long ago, I was puzzled when young Germans with fatigue, headaches, indigestion, or flu symptoms wanted their blood pressure checked. Then I learned.

The French ignore stress and don’t suffer low blood pressure. Perhaps because of the universal consumption of wine, French tradition teaches that subtle liver disorders produce many distressing symptoms. 

Constipation was once the great English preoccupation. This was thought to produce “auto-intoxication” from retained waste that leaked toxins into the body. Surgeons would occasionally remove a patient’s entire colon. They don’t do that today, but many laymen still consider it beneficial to undergo a “colonic,” in which a technician inserts a tube into the anus and washes out all those toxins.

Traditional healing in China emphasizes a medicine for every condition. I’m sure you would be insulted (and so would any educated Asian) if I were to suggest that you expect a prescription every time you see us, but doctors often get that impression.

I regularly explain to puzzled Chinese parents why it isn’t necessary to treat every symptom of their sick child. On other occasions, when I explain that an adult’s minor illness will go away without treatment, I see him exchange a look with his wife that clearly means, “What bad luck! We go on a vacation. I get sick. Then I see this foreign doctor who does not know the proper medicine!”