When Doctors Wish They'd Chosen a Different Profession

Up to age one, infants look on everyone as a friend, so they’re a delight to care for. Afterward, they become aware that some people are strangers, and it’s not a happy discovery. Frightened girls tend to keep quiet, but boys often protest the moment a doctor enters and don’t stop until he leaves.

During one occasion, I removed stitches from the chin of an energetic three year-old. His family doctor had tried, then decided to wait a few days during which time the parents traveled to Los Angeles. Now the skin around the sutures was inflamed, so they had to come out. Normally suture removal is painless, but the child began shrieking at my approach. Both parents struggled to immobilize him, but you can’t prevent someone from moving his chin if that is his intention. Everyone on that hotel floor knew something terrible was happening. It took five minutes to snip four sutures, leaving everyone exhausted.

I Don't Do Adderall

“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 disorder. 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 need more Adderall.

None sounded like drug-seekers. All were happy to pay my fee for a visit during which I would check them out. Since there is no way that I can examine a guest and determine if he or she suffers adult attention-deficit disorder, I told them I’d have to speak to his or her doctor. None ever called.

It’s been decades since I made a similar decision on narcotics. Guests occasionally forget their heart 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 were clearly 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.