Cruise Stories

The Case of the Undisgruntled Cook

Gary Podolsky MD

I had been working as Chief Medical Officer for the Cruise ship, MS Tropicale for over 5 weeks. All that my title really meant was that I was the only doctor available for a crew of 600 and a passenger complement of about 1400 that changed weekly.

By that time I had become accustomed to the general lay of the sea- passengers having minor urgencies and crewmembers needing a family doc but instead finding company doc instead. I was by this time used to petty complaints and work conflicts between the crew and officers. Most of the high-ranking officers were determined to make their ship into a "Hate Boat" and not like some TV show.

I was completely surprised and put off balance when I heard about Luis.

Luis was a very quite and humble head cook who had worked for The Company for many years. I was accustomed to seeing him in his slightly dirty but neat Cook's uniform but had rarely spoken with him. This was partly because as the Ship's doctor every time I would interact socially with the crew I would be assailed by Medical problems. The other reason is that I did t understand Spanish then. I needed an interpreter to communicate with over half the crew since we had many who could only speak either Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindee and Phillipino (Tagalog) and those were the main languages. It has always perplexed me that most of the command staff only spoke Italian and almost no English while we were sailing through the Caribbean.

I had made it a habit to insist that I would only examine someone if they could bring along an interpreter. The usual response was that there was no one who could understand this person. I would patiently point out that there must be someone who understood them otherwise how could they get hired and do any work for the Company. An interpreter would begrudgeley apparate, perform their translation, and disappear.

In Luis's case I had seen him only once as a patient when his boss Todd, the Food and Beverage Manager made him attend clinic for a minor burn. Usually the crew from affluent countries do not like their situation and constantly complain. The crew from developing countries are much more stoic. Even though they receive sub minimal wages they mutely do their jobs for up to 12 months away from their families making much more than they would at home.

Todd was later praising Luis as one of the best workers he had ever had. All Luis did was report for work on time, never complain, and then go to his room to sleep. These words greatly disturbed me since as far as I knew no one else was even remotely like that aboard.

As Chief Medical Officer but not a real officer I was taken into the crews' confidence regarding many grievances with enough material to fill lifetime subscription of Stitches and absolutely no one had respect or gratitude to The Company.

So clearly something was wrong with Luis and thought about it all night. The next day I decided to pull his chart and quickly realized the problem and solution.

Some of the older crew on chronic medication were only dispensed theirs once per month. Since I came aboard there was discontinuity with the various Docs filling my position. (In reverence to a certain TV show all physicians on our ship were neither called by their first or last name only Doc. This is the only concession to the Love Boat- there are no Julies, Isaacs or Gophers)

Luis had not had his digoxin or Lasix refilled for several months.

I quickly called him in and confirmed that he was in mild congestive heart failure. We monitored his weight and affect over the next week and he noticeably brightened. On his last visit he was proudly wearing a tack bright Hawaiian shirt instead of his white Chef's uniform indicating his internal metamorphosis.

Luis had in effect had become a CHF zombie- ignoring his deterioration while continuing to function as the "ideal "cook. Steven was upset to "lose" his best worker to good health but had to get over it.

Years later I came across a testimonial in Ross Klein's "Cruise Ship Blues" from a Luis that could only be my Luis commenting on how much he had hated working for The Company. I am reassured that he is still today in good health.