Why We Get Old and Why We Die

People believe that bodies wear out as they age, but that's wrong except for teeth and joints. These are also two areas where medical science is perfecting good replacements, so it’s possible to get the wrong impression.

You can’t wear out your eyes by excessive reading any more than you can wear out your nose by excessive smelling. You can speed up matters through bad habits such as allowing the sun to shine on your skin, but aging is built into your genes.    

Evolution designed organisms to pass their genes on to future generations as efficiently as possible. After peak reproductive years – the 30s in humans -- evolution loses interest, and the performance of your incredibly complex metabolism declines. Efficient processes become less efficient. Things break. You don’t wear out; disease eventually kills you.

If you want encouraging news, it’s possible in theory to physically alter genes so that metabolism doesn’t peak at 30 but at 100 or 200 or never.

In fact, over the past decade biologists have developed ingenious techniques to manipulate DNA. I reviewed a good book on this called A Crack in Creation. Look it up on Amazon.

Nothing about vast life extension violates natural laws, so it’s probably inevitable, but you and I were born too soon.

When Stupidity Takes Over

In 2002 I had the satisfying experience of reading a front page story about my leading rival hotel doctor.  The California Medical Board had lifted his license, and he was in serious trouble for providing narcotics to more than one celebrity. You can google it.

Most drug abusers must take to the streets and run risks, but a few are rich enough to pay a doctor to make housecall to give a single shot of whatever they prefer.  A doctor for luxury hotels gets such request regularly (“My back went out, and I have a meeting I can’t miss...”).  If a doctor is quick with the needle, the word gets out.  Calls pour in.  Money pours in.  Most likely the doctor realizes he can charge a good deal more for this service and related services. Stupidity takes over.

Eventually, prescriptions labeled with this doctor’s name are sitting in medicine cabinets, purses, and glove compartments throughout the city. Their owners are fairly careless. This doctor is doomed.

Yearning for a Rare Disease

When I was an intern, a young man came to our emergency room with fever, body aches, and general miseries.  It seemed routine until we noticed a spotty rash on his hand and feet.  Then everyone perked up.  Rash-on-hands-and-feet is a medical puzzle with plenty of answers.  We racked our brains for diseases that qualified.

“Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever,” said an intern.

“It could be secondary syphilis,” said a resident.

“Maybe typhus,” another suggested.

An old professor arrived, looked over the patient, and then turned to us. “Those are all possibilities, but any virus can produce that rash,” he explained. “It’s probably the flu.” Sadly, from our point of view, he was right.

It's the Law!!

Every sick hotel guest should contact his or her family doctor before calling me. The doctor, being familiar with the patient, is more likely to deal with the problem over the phone and prevent an expensive housecall.  

When I suggest this, almost everyone assures me that their doctor is “unavailable,” especially if they’re calling after business hours.

I point out that, if so, their doctor is breaking the law. Every state requires a doctor (or someone covering) to be available at all times. Not being available is called “abandonment,” and it’s illegal. If you write your state medical board, he’ll get into trouble (or at least they’ll contact him; nowadays medical boards respond to complaints).  

Paying for Paramedics

Hotel guests, Americans above all, do not like paying for a housecall. Many, if they are feeling bad, decide to “call an ambulance.”

Paramedics know their business. If the guest requires urgent attention, they’ll take him to a hospital. If not, they might still transport him because they don’t like to take chances. If the situation is clearly not urgent, they’ll tell him to consult a doctor. Sometimes I end up making the visit.

Paramedics are city employees, so their services are free. But for reasons unclear to me, transportation in an ambulance is not free. If paramedics take you to a hospital, the city will send you a bill. Like all medical services in America, the cost will take your breath away.

Dodging Another Bullet

People don’t like to disturb doctors, so a woman with abdominal pain suffered through the night before calling at 6 a.m. I was about eat breakfast, but I would have changed into my suit and arrived in half an hour if she hadn’t told me that the pain was diminishing.

I told her I’d be there in an hour. After breakfast, I drove to the Airport Marriott and knocked. No one answered. I knocked several more times and then confirmed that this was the correct room. I was about to call Security when the door swung open. No one was there.

Looking down, I saw a woman lying flat on her face. She had crawled across the room to open the door. I dragged her to the bed and called the paramedics who took her to the hospital where she underwent emergency surgery for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. If I’d dawdled over breakfast, she might have bled to death.

Why Americans Don't Eat Horse Meat

Doctors grumble at the popularity of alternative medicine, but the truth is that we still have a monopoly. This is not so in other civilized nations. In France and Germany, for example, herbal medicine is mainstream - i.e. health insurance pays for it.

When Americans get sick, almost all head straight for a medical doctor. From a doctor’s view, that’s the right decision. Scientific medicine works. But that’s not the reason. The idea that scientific explanations are the best has always been a minority view, and recent nutty events haven’t changed matters. In a free election, ghosts would win and evolution lose -- by a landslide.       

Americans mostly prefer medical doctors just as we prefer baseball and big cars. It’s an American thing. We don’t eat horse meat because…well, we don’t.