LIFE ON SHIP FLOATS HIS BOAT
Dan Ezekiel is sailing the seas as an on-board doctor.
Vancouver family doctor Dan Ezekiel says he’s never seen the kind of fraternizing aboard cruise ships that made the Love Boat such a popular show, but he’s had some exciting times as a freelance physician on various cruise lines over the past two decades.
“That TV show had a lot to do with the creation of the cruise ship industry as we know it today. Doc (the ship medic) was a career, quintessential ship doctor. He never had a medical practice at the same time on land,” Ezekiel said during an interview in his Vancouver office.
Bernie Kopell, the actor who played Doc, once said that the show was like “Disney porn.” He got to say lines such as, “Take your clothes off, I’ll be right in” to beautiful actresses on the show.
Ezekiel has worked as a ship doctor for tours to Alaska, Panama, the Caribbean, Antarctica and throughout the Mediterranean. He says the experience is far from being a paid holiday, with responsibilities continuing around the clock.
“You don’t do this for money, you do it for the chance to see places you might not otherwise see and for the adventures,” said Ezekiel, who has had additional emergency medicine training and also worked in emergency departments at small hospitals throughout B.C.
Cruise ship doctors get some nice perks though — like being part of the officer crew and dining or hosting at special tables in the dining room.
“It can be exciting doing these cruises as the doctor. Everyone recognizes you. You’re kind of a celebrity on board. Everyone wants to chat with you, especially the passengers on board who are retired doctors.”
Ezekiel signed on for his first three-month stint in 1993, on a Norwegian ship that sailed around the Caribbean. He was four years out of the University of Toronto medical school, and wanted to use his medical expertise — family medicine with extra training in emergency medicine — in creative ways.
Four more stints on cruises followed over the next several years and now he’s hoping to do a second trip around Antarctica this summer with Quark Expeditions.
Unlike full-time cruise line staff doctors, freelance doctors don’t get paid (although some companies pay a nominal fee), but their trip expenses are covered. They also don’t get to pocket the cash that passengers have to pay to see doctors; that goes to the cruise lines.
Ezekiel recalls a Mediterranean cruise as being one of the highlights of his life. Besides docking in places such as Rome, Sicily, Venice, Dubrovnik, and Morocco, the ship overnighted in Monte Carlo, Monaco, during the Grand Prix. Ezekiel’s wife was with him and he said it was “one of the best nights of my life.”
Seasickness is the “bread and butter” of cruise ship doctors since they see it so often but Ezekiel has never had it himself, even through the Drake Passage off Cape Horn — renowned for being among the roughest water in the world.
“They don’t call it the Drake Shake for nothing,” he jokes.
News coverage of noroviruses make them appear as though they are more common on cruises than they are; Ezekiel said the five tours he’s done have never had such outbreaks, nor has he suffered any gastrointestinal illnesses himself.
The work on board is “exactly the same” as the cases family doctors see in their offices, with the occasional emergency. Ezekiel said one case stands out — a woman who suffered a hyphema involving hemorrhaging in the eye. She saw Ezekiel soon after the ship left Costa Rica bound for Los Angeles. Ezekiel went to the bridge to tell the captain that he had contacted ophthalmologists at a University of California hospital and was told she should get there as soon as possible. So the decision was made to cruise at a much faster speed, something that meant incurring far higher fuel costs. “We got there eight hours faster, and an ambulance met us in port.”
Big cruise ships have helicopter pads for emergencies but “that would have to be something incredibly serious since it is not easy to land a helicopter on a moving ship. It’s not as simple as it may seem,” Ezekiel says.
Fractured hips, acute appendicitis attacks and other conditions requiring surgery are treated as urgent. In such cases, the ship doctor takes his concerns to the captain like Ezekiel did in the bleeding eye case and a plan is put in action. Sometimes passengers are evacuated at the next port.
Many ships have a separate physician who treats crew members, often a match to the demographics of the largely Filipino or Indonesian crew, for example, he said. On one of Ezekiel’s trips, a Filipino crew member started coughing up blood, a symptom of what turned out to be tuberculosis. The employee and all his contacts were quarantined and taken off the ship at the next port.
Coughs, ankle sprains, and sore throats are frequent complaints of passengers and since people seem to fall frequently on rough seas — especially after drinking — doctors see plenty of bruises, cuts and fractures.
“There are people who fall into the pool while drunk, a more serious matter if the pool has been drained. And then there are the people who get hurt while on port excursions like zip-lining.”
Though he’s treated innumerable passengers on ships, he’s seen only one death — an elderly passenger with congestive heart failure.
“There’s lots of older people on Alaska cruises so it’s perhaps not surprising this would be encountered occasionally,” Ezekiel said.
Ezekiel said doctors are reliant on the highly trained and experienced ship nurses who are often the first responders to any medical calls.
Asked what advice he would give cruise ship passengers about how to avoid getting sick, Ezekiel says he can only repeat the handwashing mantra.
The Vancouver Port will see more than 800,000 cruise ship passengers come through on about 250 calls by about 30 ships this season, according to Port Metro Vancouver. The Alaska cruise season officially begins April 29.