No Easy Way to Hollywood

There is no quick drive to Hollywood. I can take the freeway north through the San Fernando Valley, a twenty mile trip. Or I can take it east through downtown for nineteen miles. A direct route is eight miles, but that’s tedious stop-and-go on city streets. Taking the long way doesn’t mean an easy drive because the freeway is often but unpredictably jammed.

When Loews in Hollywood called at 11 p.m. my heart sank less than usual. It was late enough for most drivers to be in bed.

But not quite late enough. The male fun fair in West Hollywood was in full swing, filling the streets.   

Loews in Santa Monica calls me exclusively, but the Hollywood Loews keeps a list of doctors, thus assuring that none of us will lean over backward to accommodate it by, for example, coming during the rush hour (no hotel doctor lives near Hollywood).

My immediate problem in a nonexclusive hotel is that parking valets may not recognize me, so my mantra:  “I’m the hotel doctor. They let me park here” might not work, and I would have to pay. But it worked this time.

As usual, delivering medical care was the easiest part. A perk of hotel doctoring is that I go home after seeing a single guest. During my best months, I go home a hundred times.

I like my job, but going home always feels better than going to work. I played my audio tape. I looked benignly on the midnight revelers as I crept through West Hollywood. Beverly Hills and Century City were nearly deserted, but traffic lights ensured that I would not make haste.

Ever Hopeful

I made a housecall to the Four Seasons recently. Years ago, I shared the Four Seasons elevator with Robert Duvall. He was reading a script, and I pretended not to notice.

I’ve responded to half a dozen calls from that hotel over thirty years, but this was not one. Assistcard, a travel insurer, had sent me to see an 18 month-old with a cold. I took care of the child and left without introducing myself to the concierge.

The Four Season’s house doctor is the only colleague who has been around longer than I, and he serves half a dozen premier luxury hotels around Beverly Hills. In the distant past I covered for him when he wasn’t available. My records show 45 visits to the Four Seasons and several hundred to his other hotels. I loved those calls.

I retired in 2003 and unretired in 2007. During my absence he found someone else to help out. While he welcomed me back, I’m no longer his main support, but he phones at rare intervals.

When insurance services send me to hotels that don’t call, I remind the staff of my superior qualities. This has proved an excellent source of new clients but, ever hopeful, I don’t solicit this doctor’s hotels.  

Another Year

A wave of heat poured out of the guest’s room as he opened the door.

“Another year has passed,” I reminded myself. May 13 marked Los Angeles’s first heat wave of 2013. The temperature reached 91. Since autumn I’d forgotten that people around the world, Arabs excepted, consider air conditioning unhealthy. They tolerate it as one of the exotic discomforts of travel but not when someone gets sick.

This is not a belief amenable to reason, so I go about my business, sweltering in my suit and tie. I rarely take off my jacket because I keep tools (thermometer, tongue depressor, flashlight, otoscope, syringes, prescription pad) in various pockets. Sometimes medicine is hard.

D as in "Dog"

A travel insurer sent me to Koreatown, an older area of Los Angeles, home to a mixture of Koreans and Hispanics. It’s a colorful neighborhood, and like all colorful neighborhoods, parking is a chore. I found a spot several blocks away from the apartment.

Travel insurance patients are subletting or visiting friends, so searching the directory near the locked entrance never reveals their name. Phoning her number, I heard a voicemail message. That was not bad news because insurance services pay for no-shows, but I had to make an effort. I phoned the agency to explain. The dispatcher urged me to wait while she tried to contact the client. I waited. After five minutes, a resident entered the building; I followed and knocked on apartment 1D. The lady who answered denied that anyone needed a doctor.

After another ten minutes, I decided I’d done my duty and returned to my car. My phone rang as I arrived.

The client was taking a shower, said the dispatcher. She was now ready to receive me. I recounted my experience at apartment 1D, but 1B turned out to be the correct number. In my defense, during the original call I confirmed that the patient was in 1D as in “dog.” But English was not the first language for both guest and dispatcher.

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

I’ve been warning that this blog may vanish on January 15 when my E-mail provider, Physicians On-Line, goes out of business. Google could make it easy for bloggers to change their primary E-mail, but it turns out to be nearly impossible. However, Google does allow us to invite another person to join the blog and share all contributing and editing privileges.

So I sent an invitation to myself which I accepted. Google apparently has no objection to two Mike Oppenheim’s hosting a blog, identical in all areas except E-mail. I keep my fingers crossed that one will remain after the 15th.  

Warning: This Blog May Vanish

I suspect this blog will disappear on January 15, 2013. That’s when Medscape shuts down its E-mail which I’ve been using since the 1990s. At first, I assumed this would be no problem. I would log on using my other E-mail addresses, but they don’t work.

Innocently, I went to a Google forum to ask how to transfer the blog to another E-mail. Almost immediately a responder explained that I must use the permissions wizard – “carefully.” My heart sank as I read an entire page of instructions, links, and warnings plus the suggestion that it works best using two computers and two browsers. I didn’t understand.

My current plan is to recreate the blog which will probably require a different name, so keep your eyes peeled.

Bad Credit Cards

A member of an Argentine soccer team fell while roller staking, wrenching his ankle.  A doctor from their travel insurer in Buenos Aires determined that he needed an orthopedist but that this could wait until office hours the following day. However, the doctor wanted someone to examine him that evening, so my phone rang.

The team was staying in Long Beach, 35 miles away, but the rush-hour had passed, and the agency did not object to the extra fee. This was International Assistance. I’ve made 896 of its visits, but after an ownership change, it became extremely slow to pay. Losing patience, I insisted it give me a credit card number, so I could pay myself. This is always a critical request, because some agencies refuse and disappear from my radar. But International Assistance agreed.

As soon as I hung up, I remembered that IA’s current credit card had expired in August. When I called back, the dispatcher put me on hold to consult her superior. After a few minutes, she returned with a new number.

I phoned the credit card company and entered my identification and the credit card number only to hear the computer declare: “Do not honor! Do not honor!” I phoned IA again, awaited the consultation, and received another card. “Do not honor!” intoned the computer a second time.

“Invalid credit card number” I heard on my third attempt. This turned out to be my mistake; in my increasing frustration, I made an error entering her third number. After correcting it, I heard the satisfying: “Approved” following by a confirmation number. Insurance agencies often give me bad credit cards. I suspect their business is as competitive as mine, so many are in perilous financial condition.

My patient was reclining on a couch, an ice pack on his ankle, his teammates gathered around. The ankle was massively swollen, and he was in pain. Waiting would not have caused permanent harm, but people with painful injuries deserve quick attention.

Fortunately, IA is an agency that takes my advice even when it costs money, so his companions took him to an emergency room to deal with fractures of both leg bones.