A Dog-Eat-Dog Business, Part 7

When a travel insurer sent me to the Airport Marriott, I remembered that the hotel hadn’t called in a year, so I decided to reintroduce myself.

“We don’t have a doctor,” said the lady in the security office.

“I’ve made hundreds of visits.”

“I never called you,” she insisted. She summoned a nearby officer who agreed that no one knew about a hotel doctor. She accepted my card and put it in a drawer.

My next stop was the concierge desk, but it was vacant. When times are tough, concierges are the first employees to go.

The front desk clerks agreed that having a hotel doctor was a wonderful idea and thanked me for my cards.

“I guess no one’s been sick,” said the bellman cheerfully when I queried him. I had no doubt that whatever doctor he called tipped him $20 or $30 or $50 for the referral. This is illegal but a common practice. The bellman thanked me for my card and put it in a drawer.

If you assume that general managers hate choosing a doctor on the basis of his kickback, you’d be right. Sometimes. When I informed the GM of the Westin, he took action. When I informed the GM of the Beverly Hills Hotel he merely passed my letter on to the chief concierge who phoned to announce that I need expect no calls from the Beverly Hills hotel.

Sick guests often call the operator, so I dialed the Marriott’s number.

“Hi, Doctor Oppenheim. It’s been a long time.”

That was a pleasant surprise. The operator explained that she had worked there for twenty years and spoken to me many times. She admitted that the hotel had no policy on doctors nor was any name in their directory. She would be happy to take down my number and pass it around. 

I left feeling pleased with myself because I hardly ever market myself to employees. I continue to make the occasional visit to the Marriott but always at the request of a travel insurer. The hotel itself remains silent.

A Glamorous Job

A five-year-old was coughing and congested.

His parents were guests at Loews in Hollywood, nine miles away through city streets. Nineteen miles on the freeway would take less time provided traffic moved smoothly, but this was unlikely at 4 p.m. on a Friday. I told the mother that it sounded like a routine virus, but she insisted the child needed attention.

Sometimes being hotel doctor to the stars is not so glamorous. Then I recalled a pediatrician colleague who had expressed interest in helping out. I phoned his office. He was finishing his last patient and, to my delight, agreed to make the housecall. I was so relieved that I forgot to tell him a few things.

That evening he phoned to let me know the visit had gone well. 

“But it took over an hour to reach the hotel, and they charged me fifteen dollars to park.”

Helping a Lady

A guest at Checkers, an upscale downtown hotel, had the flu with a 103 fever. I washed my hands before examining her; afterwards I washed again and included my stethoscope. I’ve had the flu shot, but I still worry about catching it. I suffered the flu in 1977, and I remember it as the worst illness of my life until I became elderly.

I finished around midnight. Returning to my car, I passed two young women arguing bitterly on the sidewalk. One insisted on walking to their hotel, the other objected because she was wearing high heels. 

At my age, no one considers me threatening. As I started the engine, one of the women tapped on my window and asked for a lift. I drove her to the Bonaventure, six blocks away. She had been drinking but was coherent and grateful for the favor.

Why I Like Foreigners

“Do you take insurance?” asked a Biltmore guest after learning my fee. She was  an American.

Hearing that she would have to pay up front and submit my invoice, she decided to wait. She was suffering an upset stomach which would probably clear up in a day. I gave advice and told her to feel free to call.

“Could I have your name and room number?” I asked before hanging up.

“Is that so you can charge me?” she asked.

“Phone calls are free,” I said. “I just need to keep a record.”  

An hour later she called to say she had changed her mind. Could I come?

Her vomiting had stopped but not her nausea and headache. After an exam, I gave her two packets of pills: one for nausea, one for the headache.

“How much are these?” she asked.

“Nothing.” I assured her that she was over the worst of her stomach virus. 

“So it’s a minor problem that’s already going away. You came, but you didn’t do much for me.”

I agreed that I hadn’t cured her but perhaps I had helped in other ways. I could have mentioned the convenience of a housecall and the medicines I hand over, and my long drive to the hotel. None of this would have worked. I simply expressed satisfaction that she was improving and told her to phone if problems developed.

“And then you’ll come back and charge me again?” she asked.

I explained that I rarely make a second visit for the same problem, but I would try to help.

Tempting the God of Housecalls

I was mildly entertained during 45 minutes of the popular movie, Interstellar. The physics was wrong, and the politics of its dystopian future defied logic, but the production held my interest.

Then my phone buzzed for a housecall. Theaters will refund my money at any time, but I don’t ask unless the movie has just begun. Admission is cheap compared to my fee, and I can always return. Half the time, I’m happy to leave. When I go to a live performance, I ask a colleague to cover but never for a movie, although I sit on the aisle so I can leave without disturbing the audience.

Doctors agree that patients phone at the most inconvenient time, but I look forward to calls, so I try to persuade the fickle God of Housecalls that I don’t want to be interrupted. Going to a movie or restaurant or the dentist seems to accomplish this. If I have no plans for the afternoon, I may lay down for a nap in the hope, often fulfilled, that the fickle God will jump at the chance to wake me up.

I saw the final two hours of Interstellar a week later and remained mildly entertained. I won’t give anything away, but when a Hollywood movie features a conflict between science and love, only one outcome is possible.

I Was Once America's Leading Writer of Health Articles

I still hold the record for Woman’s Day – about 35 articles. I stopped as I reached middle-age in the 1990s in favor of a yearning to write literature. Don’t expect a plug for my fiction. It’s been published, but you have to look hard to find it. You can hear one of my plays (a reading, not a performance) on February 25. Google Cincinnati Playwrights Initiative for details.

Mass-market health articles deliver positive, uplifting information. Editors have no interest in controversy, muckraking, entertaining anecdotes, or the writer’s personal experience – the sort of material you find in my blog.

I knew this, but I sometimes couldn’t resist.

Media doctors love to warn of hidden dangers, ominous symptoms, and important information would make you healthier if you only knew about it.  

Readers learn that they can become superhealthy. In other words, if they are doing everything right, they can do even more – eat “superfoods,” “boost” their immune system, and fend off aging. It’s possible a super-healthy life-style can reduce a nine month pregnancy to seven months.

Media doctors insist that a positive attitude cures disease. To heal, you must fervently want to heal. I call that the “be happy or die” approach.

I wanted to do something different – tell readers of things they don’t need to worry about and things that are supposed to make them healthier but don’t. Green mucus, yellow diarrhea, smelly urine, sharp chest pains, and white spots on tonsils rarely require urgent action and often no action at all. Patients worry that a headache means their blood pressure is high, fatigue that their blood pressure is low, and that their third cold of the year means that their immune system is weak. All not true.

Editors hated this.

“Readers look up to us”, they said. “Why should we tell them that our other doctors are wrong?” they asked.

“We never tell a reader not to worry,” they added. “If she follows your advice, and something bad happens, she will blame you. And us.” 

Those articles remain unpublished. They never came close.

My Favorite Infections

Number one is urine infections in women, because I quickly make them go away. Handing over a packet of antibiotics, I assure someone who has been running to the bathroom every half hour that she’ll feel better by the next morning. In men, urine infections are usually prostate infections; these resolve slowly.

Eye infections (“pinkeye,” conjunctivitis) go away quickly after we prescribe antibiotic drops because most conjunctivitis goes away quickly whether or not antibiotics help (mostly they don’t). Everyone with a pink eye assumes they need eye drops, and doctors are happy to oblige, so we find these satisfying to treat.

Some intestinal infections respond to antibiotics but almost all occur in poor parts of the world. They’re rare in the US where vomiting and diarrhea is usually a “stomach virus” and short-lived.   

Amazingly, experts debate whether antibiotics help ear infections. Doctors in many nations don’t prescribe them, but Americans do. Patients give us credit when they get better. We like that.