A Hotel Doctor's Database, Part 2

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.