Getting Help, Part 3

If hotel doctoring seems romantic to you, it has the same effect on the medical profession, so a want-ad I placed in the Los Angeles County Medical Journal produced an avalanche of responses.

Many callers had a day job. If they worked at a clinic, they couldn’t help because clinic malpractice insurance never covers work outside the office. Buying their own policy was impossible because none are cheap enough to cover the modest income I could provide. For this reason, residents also couldn’t work for me. Nor could retired doctors who’d dropped their insurance.

Some callers had a practice and their own insurance, but that meant they couldn’t leave during office hours. Most assured me they’d love to make visits afterward – to hotels in their area. Since doctors live in prosperous neighborhoods, but hotels are often downtown or near the airport, this would make my life too complicated.

I never considered myself unique until I tried to find a helper. My ideal would be competent, likeable, available 24 hours a day, and willing to travel anywhere. That describes me but no applicant so far. I enjoy friendly relations with a few other hotel doctors who cover when I leave town, but it’s never ideal to turn your business over to a competitor.

A surprising number of doctors announced they were free during the day and eager to make visits anywhere. All made me suspicious. Why didn’t they have a job? Doctors have no trouble finding work. Quizzing them provided no reassurance. They had just arrived in town; they were unwilling to settle down just yet; they were searching for a congenial position… 

I take for granted any doctor with a day job possesses at least marginal competence, but what about these fellows? Every doctor scratches his head over a few colleagues, wondering how they slipped through medical school and into practice without anyone noticing. So I’m still looking.