The Hotel Doctor

  “This is Doctor Oppenheim,” I repeated several times before hanging up. Caller ID identified the Doubletree in Santa Monica, so I phoned t...

  “She speaks Spanish. I’m not sure what’s going on, but she needs a doctor.”  The caller was the night manager at the Torrance Marriott. ...

  A travel insurer reported a sick child at the Anaheim Holiday Inn, near Disneyland forty miles away. Freeway traffic was tolerable, but wh...

The caller spoke with a Hispanic accent, so I assumed he was a travel insurer, and I was right. It was StandbyMD, one of the good insurers...

  Opening an envelope from an international travel insurer, I expected a check but found only a form letter containing a dozen boxes, each l...

  Could I see a gentleman at the Omni with an upset stomach? The dispatcher for International Assistance was delighted to learn that I cou...

I keep an eye on the competition, searching the internet for various combinations of “hotel doctor,” “house call doctor,” “housecall,” etc...

  6 a.m. Saturday is an ideal time for a call. I had finished writing and was sitting down to breakfast. I told the dispatcher that I would ...

A guest at the Crowne Plaza was feeling under the weather. The guest spoke poor English but, through the bellman, asked if I took his in...

The guest’s symptoms suggested a urine infection, one of my favorite diseases. They’re miserable but respond quickly to antibiotics. T...

“Do you take insurance?” asked a Biltmore guest after learning my fee. She was   an American. Hearing that she would have to pay u...

The desk clerk at an upscale hotel informed me that a guest wanted my services. The call arrived at 3 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. I h...

The phone rang at 5 a.m. but I am an early riser. April Travel Insurance told me of a lady with a cough at the Residence Inn in Man...

It was after nine when I left for Long Beach, thirty miles away. Freeway traffic moved swiftly; the patient was a sixteen year-old wit...

The phone rang at 3:30 a.m. An airline pilot at the Costa Mesa Hilton needed a doctor, explained the caller. Could I go? That Hilto...

Every summer, a hundred Brazilian adolescents descend on UCLA’s dormitories to study English. When one gets sick, a counselor phones A...

Universal Assistance asked me to visit a sick Costa Rican in Downy, a suburb of Los Angeles about thirty miles distant. She gave t...

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

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....