As If I Didn't Need Reminding

She was a model, a Ritz-Carlton guest informed me. The previous week she had undergone half a dozen plastic surgery procedures on her buttocks and lower abdomen. Now she needed the sutures removed. After she asked for “an appointment,” I told her when I would arrive. 

“Well… OK….” she said. I could sense her reluctance. She had assumed I’d see her in my office. If guests ask for an office visit, I know colleagues who will accommodate them. But I love visits for suture removals. They’re easy, and guests appreciate the convenience. 

When the door opened, I saw a tall, slim, strikingly beautiful woman who nearly jumped with joy when she saw me. 

“Oh, good!” she exclaimed with relief. “I’m glad you’re not one of those young doctors!”

Unsettling News

The guest I had seen the previous day was found dead, I learned from the manager of a downtown hotel.

A hotel doctor’s worst nightmare is a patient dying in the room after he leaves. This has never happened to me although several died soon after I sent them to the hospital. It turned out that this guest was not my first.

She was an elderly lady complaining of palpitations whom I had seen the night before. On my examination, her heart was beating too rapidly, so I took her to an emergency room. After the usual delays, the emergency room doctor found the heart beating normally, so he told her to mention it to her family doctor and then sent her back to the hotel where she died.

Frustration

An Emirate Airline flight attendant was suffering severe back pain. 

Emirate crew stay the Hilton in Costa Mesa, 46 miles away in Orange County. There is an Orange county doctor, but she had not responded. It was 2:40 a.m.

I didn’t complain. Freeway traffic is light. I have no office hours, so I can go back to bed if I want. I earn extra for long drives and late hours. The Orange County doctor enjoys a rich social life, so she’s often unavailable. I made 42 housecalls to her territory in a single year.

I dressed and drove off. As I entered the freeway my phone rang. The visit was cancelled. The Orange County doctor had checked in and reported that she was on her way. 

I pointed out that once the agency assigns a doctor, he or she should take priority. The dispatcher agreed and promised that it would not happen again

Another Celebrity Injection

A VIP was flying in from San Francisco. He was under the weather and needed a shot before the night’s performance. 

Someone else has the Los Angeles franchise on celebrity injections, but I handle the occasional request.

There were the usual inconveniences. I was told to be at the hotel at 2 p.m. but his flight was delayed. The new time was 3 p.m. I waited at home. It was 3:20 when a phone call announced that he was on his way, so I drove off.

He was a singer but not an A-list. I’ve long since forgotten his name. I met him in a suite at an upscale (but not luxury) hotel on the Sunset Strip accompanied by only three assistants. Unlike international stars, he shook my hand, thanked me for coming, and allowed me to ask about his illness and examine him. Major celebrities nod a greeting and then resume communing with their entourage, pausing momentarily for the injection. 

He had a cough, and his doctor had recommended cortisone. Unlike B12, the traditional celebrity injection, cortisone works but probably not by the time of his performance in a few hours.

A Costly Mistake

Since 1984, twelve hotel guests cleaned their ear with a Q-tip, extracted it, noticed that the cotton had vanished, and called for a doctor.

These were stressful visits because I worried that the cotton might be too far inside to reach, and I don’t like poking with needle-nosed tweezers. Mostly, I was lucky, but one visit didn’t work out as planned.

“I don’t see anything,” I said after looking in the ear. The guest insisted that I must be in error. I looked again. Nothing that didn’t belong.

While he thought this over, I looked in the bathroom. On the floor near the sink lay a tiny ball of cotton.

He tried to laugh this off, but I could see his pain. I’d made the visit at the request of a housecall service that had already collected on his credit card, so there was no way I could give him a discount. It was an expensive mistake.

Another Arab Prince

It seemed a routine visit for an upset stomach until I knocked at what turned out to be the penthouse suite of a Beverly Hills hotel. The man who answered identified himself as “the prince’s personal assistant.” I followed him into another large room where the prince, an elderly Saudi, lay in bed. It was five in the morning.

The assistant indicated the patient – not the prince but a young woman sitting nearby, looking wan. I took her into another room to deliver my care. She was an American in her twenties, and I wondered why she was in the prince’s room at this hour. Perhaps she was a prostitute, but she seemed nice.  

When I returned to the bedroom, the prince thanked me for coming, adding that he had a personal problem. He suffered crippling back pain and had run out of medication. Could I help? As we talked, I noticed the assistant waggling his finger in a gesture indicating that I should not pursue the matter. I took the hint.

Accompanying me to the elevator, the assistant explained that everyone preferred that the prince’s doctor handle the prince’s drugs. Then he pulled out a sheaf of bills and paid me far too much. I don’t decline tips from the very rich.

Most Arabs that I see are ordinary people, but over thirty years the occasional prince turns up. They pay generously and provide material for this blog .

Losing Two Out of Three

A guest at the Hollywood Heights with an upset stomach requested my services. I had barely hung up when an Englishman at the Shangri-La wanted a doctor for a respiratory infection. These hotels were not convenient – the Hollywood Heights is ten miles east, the Shangri-La in Santa Monica five miles west. But two visits make for a good day, so I drove off in a pleasant mood.

As I approached Hollywood, the phone rang. My heart sank when I learned the caller was the Sheraton in Pasadena, twenty miles away – thirty from Santa Monica.  
  

Having visits pile up, especially those with long drives, oppresses me, so this was one I’d prefer to skip.

This guest’s husband, who was driving to the hotel from the airport, was suffering a cough and sore throat and wanted a doctor when he arrived. Launching my no-visit effort, I explained that viral infections cause these symptoms in almost all cases, so a doctor can do little except relieve symptoms. I suggested that she discuss this with her husband when he arrived. She agreed. With that weight off my shoulders, I continued on to the Hollywood Heights.

After finishing, I reversed my course and headed for Santa Monica. As I neared the hotel my phone rang. “A friend of mine found a bottle of amoxicillin,” said the Shangri-La guest. “I think I’ll give it a try and save you the trip.”

Having lost that visit, I immediately called the Pasadena Sheraton. The husband had arrived, and they had decided to wait.