The Occasional Surprise - The Life of a Hotel Doctor

A travel insurer asked me to see a lady in Mission Hills complaining of high blood pressure.

A travel insurer asked me to see a lady in Mission Hills complaining of high blood pressure.

I drove off confident that this wasn’t her problem because high blood pressure causes no symptoms. Mostly patients are suffering a headache or anxiety or dizziness.

Now and then I’m surprised. In hotel doctoring, surprises are generally unpleasant but not in this case.

She didn’t have high blood pressure, admitted the lady apologetically. She’d lost her thyroid pills and only needed a prescription.

When I learn that guests need a legitimate medicine, I phone a pharmacy to replace it, and I don’t charge. Guests with travel insurance don’t call me but their agency’s 800 number. Embarrassed to use insurance for a trivial problem, they lie. Sometimes hotel doctoring is easy.

Operations & Strategy USA & Canada United States

In his regular column "The Life of a Hotel Doctor", Mike Oppenheim shares remarkable stories around visiting hotel guests as a doctor. When he began as a hotel doctor during the 1980s, only luxury hotels had a “house doctor,” usually a local practitioner who did it as a sideline.

In his regular column "The Life of a Hotel Doctor", Mike Oppenheim shares remarkable stories around visiting hotel guests as a doctor. When he began as a hotel doctor during the 1980s, only luxury hotels had a “house doctor,” usually a local practitioner who did it as a sideline. Nowadays, in a large city even the lowliest motel receives blandishments from a dozen individuals plus several agencies that send moonlighting doctors if they can find...

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