“A guest at the Century Plaza wants
his Adderall refilled. Can you go?” asked someone from the office of a local
concierge doctor.
“I can go, but I don’t do Adderall,”
I said.
“No problem.” She would find another
doctor. Prescription refills are easy house calls.
You’ve heard of childhood attention-deficit
disorders. Recently psychiatrists have discovered that it also affects adults.
Treatment is the same. That includes drugs related to amphetamines; the most
popular for adults is Adderall. As a hotel doctor my only experience with
attention-deficit disorder comes from guests who ask for more Adderall.
None sounded like drug-seekers. All were happy to
pay my fee for a visit during which they assumed that I would check them out.
Since there is no way that I can examine a guest and make a diagnosis of adult
attention-deficit disorder, I told them I’d have to speak to his or her doctor.
That never came to pass.
It’s been decades since I made a similar decision
on narcotics. Guests occasionally forget their heart or blood pressure pills,
but soon after becoming a hotel doctor, I grew puzzled at how many needed more
Vicodin or Oxycontin. Some sounded suspicious from the start, but many seemed
in great pain. Their distress tore at my heart, and they often produced a sheaf
of X-rays and letters from a doctor. With no reliable way to tell the fakes
from the genuine, I gave up on narcotics.
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