The Hotel Doctor

  “He’s over there! I think it’s an emergency!” Emerging from the elevator, I did not want to hear this. Despite the impression left...

At one point years ago, I had to discard half a dozen bottles of antibiotic eye drops when they reached their expiration date. I c...

  “Is he a VIP?” “All our citizens are VIPs” said the consul for Qatar, referring to a countryman at the Airport Hilton. Sick gu...

A guest at the Hyatt had fallen ill and cancelled a flight. He had recovered, but the airline insisted on a doctor’s note before allowin...

A travel insurer asked me to see a lady in Mission Hills complaining of high blood pressure. I drove off confident that this wasn’...

I stopped chopping an onion when the phone rang. A young man at the Airport Hilton was vomiting. For a hotel doctor, a difficult c...

Guests don’t say that. Mostly I hear: “Could I talk to my husband and call you back.…..?” Unlike the competition, I don’t confine ...

Loews guest was suffering flu symptoms, but mostly he worried about his temperature. I explained that the fever was not an ominous sign....

Long before taking up hotel doctoring, I answered an ad from a physician who offered “weight control.” Every era has a weight loss...

“I’ve been trying to pick up stuff, and I can’t,” said a Ramada guest over the phone. “You mean your arm is weak?” I asked. “N...

I was attending a guest at Le Mondrian when there was a knock. The guest was not dressed, so I opened the door to find myself eye-to-eye...

I spend less than $1,000 a year for supplies, so giving them out gratis is no sacrifice. Two or three times a year, I place an order a...

Hearing my fee, the guest announced that he was on Medicare. I explained that I am not a Medicare doctor, so he would have to pay me u...

Danielle, chief concierge of the Ritz-Carlton, calls when her allergies are acting up, but this wasn’t the reason. It was an awkward s...

Handing me a vial of an injectable medication, a guest explained that he needed a refill. Its label was in Spanish, but technical term...

She had a fourteen hour flight to Australia, explained a woman with a thick French accent. Unfortunately, she had thrown her back out ...

A young man at the Chateau Marmont had been coughing for two weeks. He had a fever, and my stethoscope revealed lung noises typical of...

At one a.m. in 1994, I received a call from Le Montrose, a boutique hotel in West Hollywood. The guest told me the problem was “person...

“Bom dia” said the woman who opened the door. “Bomn dia,” I responded. That’s the limit of my conversational Portuguese. My heart sa...

Organizations like Amwell or Teladoc or Doctor on Demand pay doctors to answer phone calls. Sitting at home, we can earn $40 for a con...