Men travel more than women but are less likely to call a doctor so I’ve seen more women (9833) than men (8483). My database contains 124 patients under age one and seventeen over 90, the oldest 97. The smallest of the small hours are not silent. I’ve made 858 housecalls between midnight and 5 a.m.
My leading diagnosis is the same as that of any family
doctor: respiratory infections, 4700 visits. In second place are upset stomachs
with vomiting and diarrhea: 2672.
I’ve been around long enough to see 77 patients with
chicken pox, another 83 with gout, 12 with mumps, 61 with herpes, 29 with
poison ivy, and 149 suffering a kidney stone. Victims of kidney stones rarely
delay calling a doctor, and since they are rarely emergencies I visit a fair
number. I’ve seen 82 guests with chest
pain and sent fifteen to the hospital. Far more of my 30,000 callers complained
of chest pain, but I work hard weed out emergencies over the phone. Those
fifteen were mistakes.
My most numerous foreign patients are from Argentina,
1854, barely surpassing Britons at 1821. That’s because South American travel
insurers mostly began there and are still mostly based in Buenos Aires. But
they are expanding, and since 2000 I’ve seen more Latin American guests from
Brazil.
I’ve cared for guests from Andorra, Tonga, Malta, New
Caledonia, and Curacao but not from Latvia, Estonia, Yemen, and half a dozen
African nations. Russians didn’t travel until the fall of the Soviet Union. I
saw my first in 1991. The Chinese don’t appear until 1998. So far Cuba has sent
one.
Six guests died – fortunately none in the room after
my visit. One was dead when I arrived. Four died soon after I sent them to the
hospital and one after the ER doctor (mistakenly) sent her back. I called the
paramedics after examining sixteen guests. To my great distress (because that
means no payment) paramedics were there when I arrived six times. Many more
guests needed attention but weren’t urgent. Leaving after obtaining their
promise to go to an emergency room is a bad idea. If the guest decides to wait,
and something dreadful happens, I’m the last doctor he or she saw, a situation
that focuses the attention of malpractice lawyers. When a guest needs an
emergency room, I offer to drive them. I’ve done this 48 times.
28 guests cancelled while I was still driving. 47
weren’t in the room when I arrived. 60 refused to pay. 21 paid with a bad
check, but not all were deliberate. I eventually collected on 8. Four times,
when I arrived, another doctor was there.
I don’t record guests who get a discount but 173 paid between $5 and
$50. 110, mostly hotel employees paid nothing. I will not deny that I have a
category for “celebrity.” It has 95 entries although that includes their wives
and children. I try to head off drug abusers, but 78 slipped through. The
diagnosis on four was “drunk,” but that’s certainly too few.
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