Siri Would Catch That

Could I visit a Quantas crew member at the Marriott in Costa Mesa, asked the answering service at one a.m. Costa Mesa is fifty miles away, but the local doctor had just been there and didn’t want to go back.

I don’t work for nothing or keep office hours, so I have no objection to long drives during the wee hours. Unfortunately, the San Diego freeway, the major route to Orange County, closes at 11 p.m. for major construction at the San Gabriel interchange. You might think that this requires a modest detour, but closing the San Diego freeway, even at 2 a.m., produces an immense backup as it contracts to one lane leading to the exit. That’s followed by a long, slow drive through city streets.

Several aggravating experiences have persuaded me to take an alternate route through downtown and the Santa Ana freeway, a bumpy truck route and ten miles longer. After driving fifteen miles, I was dismayed to discover that the Santa Ana Freeway was also temporarily closed, a fact not revealed on my computer's Google Maps.

I followed the orange cones onto Washington Boulevard, a major street that intercepts the freeway further on. It was a deserted industrial area with little traffic, but I grew increasingly uneasy as the miles flew by with no freeway in sight. Pulling over, I consulted my ancient Thomas guide which revealed that I had turned the wrong way on Washington Boulevard and driven five miles back toward downtown.

“Siri would have caught that,” my wife pointed out later. Siri, of course, is Apple’s computer voice that recites your route on the I-phone GPS. She has proved valuable on vacations despite the occasional glitch. If you wander off course, Siri immediately recalculates it and tells you how to get back.

Thirty years of making housecalls has convinced me that I know everything about driving Los Angeles streets, a confidence not shaken by the rare occasion when I get lost. There’s an I-phone in my future.

Lost In Translation

“Bom dia” said the woman who opened the door.

“Bom dia,” I responded. That’s the limit of my conversational Portuguese. My heart sank as I looked around the room which contained a toddler but no adult male. Among foreign couples, the husband is much more likely to speak English.

The mother pointed at her child, made coughing noises, tapped his chest, and produced a thermometer which she waved significantly. Once she understood that I needed more information, she took up her cell phone. 

After some effort because her husband was apparently in a meeting she delivered a long recitation before handing me the phone.

“He have cough. He have the flu. He need something. She wants you to examine him.”

In response to my question, the father insisted that this was everything she had said, but I knew he was summarizing. This is a chronic problem with amateur interpreters. I asked more questions and received short versions of her long answers. The child looked happy and not at all sick, and my examination was normal. He had a cold. He’d coughed for four days and might cough for a few more, I explained. She was already giving him Tylenol, and no other medicine is safe for a two year-old. Luckily, he didn’t need medicine or bed rest or a special diet. It wasn’t even necessary to stay in the room.

If I had handed over medicine, every mother from Fiji to Mongolia to Nigeria would understand that I was behaving like a doctor. But I wasn’t. What was going on?

I’ve encountered this hundreds of times, so I work very, very hard to communicate that the child has a minor illness (husband’s translation: “Doctor says child is OK…”), that no treatment will help (husband’s translation: “Doctor does not want to give medicine…”) and that being stuck in a hotel room is boring, so she should try to enjoy herself (husband’s translation: “Doctor says go out; child is OK…”).

Tap, tap, tap…. The mother beat a tattoo on he child’s chest in a wordless appeal. Everyone knows that a sick child must be confined and given medicine. Why was I implying that he wasn’t sick?

I knew what she was thinking. I repeated my reassurance, and the husband translated. When, at the end, I asked if she understood she knew the correct answer: yes. She remembered her manners as I left and thanked me effusively.

I left feeling as discouraged as the woman. She was in a strange country, trapped in a hotel room with a sick child. Despite her best efforts, the foreign doctor didn’t understand that her son was sick.

A Hotel Doctor's Christmas

I’m the only hotel doctor who loves to work on Christmas. Freeway traffic is light, always a bonus but more so on Christmas because my competitors, including those in Orange County, prefer their holidays undisturbed, so I make some distant visits.

Guests who fall ill are especially grateful to find a doctor. Employees, apologetic when they phone, are impressed when I make an appearance. Visiting a hotel that doesn’t call provides an irresistible opportunity to point out the superior service I deliver.

The only person not delighted by all this is my wife. Long ago, receiving a second call while engaged in the first, I missed the family Christmas dinner. I won’t do that again, but that’s only a matter of juggling a few hours.