One of my commenters asked if it was true that the Full moon affected people so much that the local hospital had to hire extra night staff every month.  There have been scientific studies to disprove this, and I have never worked in a hospital that hired extra staff on the basis of the phases of the moon.

But it did get me thinking about the effects that the weather has upon people, because in my experience this does have an appreciable effect.

When I was teaching children, we would dread days when it was windy, because we knew that the children would be more active, and more prone to be disobedient, another of my commenters said exactly the same thing, so I know it wasn’t a local phenomenon.

It works for adults too – I’m much busier on windy days, and while this is just my impression, I always seem to think that there are also many more assaults.

If the weather is grey and overcast, we tend to go to more old folk who are sitting indoors, or more commonly, falling over indoors.  Sometimes you get the impression that they just want someone to talk to – or to not be alone.  There also seem to be more suicide attempts as well – and it is fairly well known that suicide rates go up in springtime.  So on those rainy spring days you end up seeing a lot of Paracetamol overdoses.

Spring and Autumn rains (and in England, Summer rains) bring with them car vs car collisions, as an infrequent rain lifts off the layer of rubber and pollution left on the road by passing cars and the roads become a skid pan.  Fallen leaves on the road don’t help, and neither do the effects of the rapidly changing hours of daylight on a drivers bodyclock.

Ice on the streets means that we will be going to plenty of “Nan Down!” calls, little old ladies falling over.  When working in the hospitals I remember one icy day where I personally dealt with 23 elderly people with broken wrists caused by falling on the ice.

When the weather is sunny, there can also be chaos on the streets – this Sunday had really nice, sunny weather, the kind of weather you only seem to remember from your childhood.  East London has a lot of narrow residential streets, with cars parked nose to tail on both sides of the road.  If these streets are ‘quiet’ then children tend to forget that cars do occasionally travel down them (thankfully not often at any speed).

So this Sunday there were more than the usual number of children being hit by cars, I went to one where a six year old had run out between two parked cars and been struck.  He had a minor head wound, and complained of neck pain, so I put a hard collar on him and when the ambulance crew turned up we did a full restraint.  He was an excellent patient – normally I can’t stand kids, but he was exceptionally brave, and when I explained about the collar, he was happy to have it on because he seen them in use on the television…

There was also a (well behaved) crowd of about 30 people standing around, and when the police turned up they got people out the way by saying “I know it’s a cliche but, please move along there is nothing to see…”

It’s a good job I don’t get performance anxiety.

The hot weather also brings out the people who start drinking at lunchtime, and continue throughout the day, tie this in with a lot of sporting fixtures, and we find ourselves going to a lot of fights in a lot of pubs.

——–

Oh, and for the people who got stuck heading Westbound on the A13 yesterday at around 15:00 – it was because there had been an accident and HEMS was blocking the road.  While I didn’t stop and look (I was too busy trying not to get hit by the people who did want to see what was happening) I did get the impression that it might have been a pedestrian trying to cross this six lane major road who then got hit.

I’m a scientist at heart, I believe in emperical evidence, research based medicine and the eradication of silly superstitions.

Unfortunately sometimes this job can throw weird things at you.

An example of this happened to me the other day.

Out of eleven jobs I went to three in the same street, lets call it ‘Gray close’.  All the jobs were to diferent houses and all were for diferent illnesses.  The area is not in an especially deprived part of Newham, so there is no real reason why I should have to go there more than usual – and to be honest, I can’t remember the last time I was there.

I was wondering what the chances of this happening were – so bear with me for a bit, and if my maths is a bit screwy then feel free to correct me.

There are roughly 92,382 households in Newham (I worked this out by dividing the population of Newham by the size of the average household 2.64), and while I cover more of an area than Newham, this number will do for the purposes of this example.

All numbers come from the Fire Service.

Gray close has 34 households.

92,382 divided by 34 is 2,717.  So the chances of a specific call being in Gray Close is 1 in 2,717.

I did 11 calls that day, and three of them were in the same close, which has the odds of something like 1 in 20,057,135,813.

At least I think that is right – it has been years since I looked at statistics and probability and to be honest I didn’t understand it then.  But while the maths might be wrong, the effect is still stunning.

An additional thought is that this isn’t that unusual – At least once a week I’ll find myself going to the same street, or streets that are neighbouring each other on the same day for multiple, unconnected calls..

It is this that makes me think that there might just be certain concentrations of some form of ‘bad vibe’ that hit certain areas causing illness, assaults and other ‘emergencies’.  I’m sure there is some clever (and very expensive) clustering software that could work out if this sort of thing was a real effect or just my all too human mind playing pattern recognition tricks with me.

Or am I just going mad?

If I ever come across a person who writes Malware – I promise that I will break their legs.  It’ll be worth it, and if I’m ever called to someone who writes this stuff I’ll make sure that their injury gets worse before they reach the hospital.

If I come across the person responsible for the “aurora.transponder” malware, I’ll start with the legs, but they will end up in little bits (I think it’ll be justifiable homicide).  Actually I think I’ll flay the fuckers alive.

I’ve spent all night using MS Antispyware, Spybot S&D and Ad-aware, all to no avail – I’ve even been manually removing registry keys and the like.  It is similar to when my car gets stolen, it’s frustrating because I’m being attacked and yet I have no-one I can punch over this.

A couple of people have suggested that I get an Apple Mac to combat this problem, unfortunately I don’t have the funds for it, but I do have a plan…

Over on the right you will find a little button.

You can click this button to send me money.  Yep, it’s begging time.

I get around 9,000 to 10,000 visitors a day, so if they all were to donate just 50p ($1) then, not only would I have enough for a nice shiny Mac, but I’d have a load left over to give to a charity.

And of course, you wouldn’t have to put up with my moaning about Malware.

Your choice…

UPDATE: The reason why the Paypal thing goes to 'Brian' is because that is the name that comes first on my birth certificate. Tom is my middle name, and I use that as my nom-de-plume because when I started this blog I wanted that little bit of a separation between this site and my real-life work, partly for patient confidentiality reasons. So don't worry, there isn't some scam going on here, and I have mentioned it before.

Secondly, I'll never charge folk to access this site, all donations are voluntary - you won't get any extra content except a 'thank you' email from me. The reason why some sites are asking for donations are because these things do cost money to run (to be fair, it's not much if you pick the right hosting solutions), and some people would like to at least break even on providing content. At the moment it costs me about £25 a month to run this site (including the hosting for the upcoming podcasts), and I get so much out of this site, and the great people who read it, that it is well worth the money.

Just a quick request.

If there are any police from KF reading this, can one of them drop me a quick email please. You may know what it is about.

Cheers

Everyone else, just ignore this post

Thirteen jobs, half of which were either drunk or long term alcoholics

The other half (with the exception of two people) were either wimps, obnoxious or a complete waste of time.

The only people driving around Newham were the sort of people who got their driving license free in a cereal box.

I’m having real trouble (read: finding it impossible) booking a hotel and flight to Copenhagen in June.

My laptop has both a virus and spyware on it (even though I never open email attachments, use a firewall).  Neither of which are being fixed with the usual tools, and so will require some real work when I have the time.

The FRU car I’m driving at the moment only seems to pick up African pirate radio stations, and doesn’t have a CD player.

…and then…while driving on blue lights and sirens, I had a young man walk calmly out in front of me – knowing I would stop.  He also gave me that whole, “you are a piece of shit I have found on my shoe” look  that certain sections of the Newham population seem to perfected towards anyone in a uniform.

Don’t ask me how I managed to stop myself from gunning the engine and aiming for the arrogant bastard.  There may have been some rather unprofessional shouting at him though.

It’s been a while since I felt that all-over white-hot rage.

So, not a good day really.

Same again tomorrow

Today is one of those days where I really need to be careful, otherwise the disjunction between what the public expects of us, and what we actually do will get me in trouble.

At the moment my body is feeling ready to give up, a troublesome changeover from night to day work doesn't help, neither does the sore throat or the feeling that my soul is still in Seattle waiting for a flight back to my body in London.

This means that the chances of me having a "sense of humour" failure are greater than normal.

I noticed it yesterday with my last job - I was called to a "60 year old male, collapsed in park". Now there are of course many reasons why someone collapses in the park, and while I keep an open mind the chances are very high that it is alcohol related.

So I got there, and there was a concerned member of the public fussing over a drunk alcoholic. All power to him, he had spotted someone in distress, and was trying to help out as best he could, and I'd much rather have people like that compared to the calls we get of "Man laying in street, poss. dead. Caller cannot stay on scene", which always seems to be a drunk.

The care I gave was the same as the care I would normally give, but I wasn't as "warm" as I normally am. I was polite, but there was something deep down in me that really couldn't be bothered with dealing with yet another alcoholic.

The ambulance turned up about a minute later, and took care of the patient - but I was aware that the bystander was probably not happy with my apparent lack of empathy.

This is that disjunction that I mentioned - the public expects us to be constantly caring people, dealing with what they see as a serious emergency - while to us it is a regular alcoholic, with very little newly wrong with them. And while we often hide our apathy behind our professionalism, it can sometimes slip.

It's that sort of job that will earn you a complaint from someone for being "not caring enough".

The fact that I feel rough (through no fault of my own) might just mean that the mask of caring might slip - and while I have no problem with people who are actually ill - if I get the usual rubbish, I'll have to be very, very careful.

I might have to do a proper post on this when I'm feeling a bit better, as it's quite an important thing about our work.

Do you have a work based blog? One that talks about what you do at work?

Would you like it listed on a website? A website that I link to?

If you answer yes, then let me know in the comments box - I'm collecting them.

Just because I own workblogs.net and jobblogs.net, and I want to do something cool with them...

UPDATE: Don't bother, some clever bugger has beaten me to it.

Some good news for Emergency Workers in Scotland.  Here is hoping it comes down South sometime soon.

New legal powers to protect emergency workers from the threat of assault come into force in Scotland today.

The Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 makes it a specific offence to assault, obstruct or hinder someone providing an emergency service or assisting an emergency worker in an emergency situation.

Healthcare unions are now looking to Westminster to see similar powers introduced to cover staff working in the rest of Britain.

Workers covered in Scotland under the act include police, fire and ambulance staff, medical practitioners, midwives, social workers enforcing child protection orders or emergency protection authorisations, mental health officers and prison officers responding to emergency situations.

Police, firefighters, ambulance workers and medical staff in hospitals are covered whenever they are on duty, as well as when they are actually dealing with emergencies.

The maximum penalty will be nine months' imprisonment, a fine of £5,000, or both.

More serious assaults will continue to be prosecuted under existing laws.

The Scottish executive has given itself the option of adding more groups to the list in the future if necessary.

The minister for finance and public service reform, Tom McCabe said: "People who deal with emergencies provide an invaluable service to our society. We believe they should be able to go about their work without fear of attack or intimidation - and that is why we brought forward this legislation."

The Royal College of Nursing had broadly supported the Scottish executive's emergency workers (Scotland) bill, while pressing for a more inclusive approach to the protection of all healthcare workers.

Sheelagh Brewer, senior employment relations adviser of the RCN, said Tony Blair's government now needed to introduce similar legislation to protect healthcare staff working outside Scotland from violence.

"It is a first," Ms Brewer said of the new legislation. "It is one of the things we included in our recent election manifesto to ensure there is an automatic offence for assaulting nurses."

The last government resisted introducing legislation specifically designed to deal with crimes committed against public sector workers.

However, it has made some progress. Last year, the NHS counter fraud and security management service set up an in-house legal protection unit to support nurses and other healthcare staff to take out private prosecutions where the police or Crown Prosecution Service decides not to take a case forward.

This led to the first antisocial behaviour order being issued against a member of the public last summer, to prevent him harassing NHS staff. Norman Hutchins was barred from entering any medical centres after 47 incidents in which he caused alarm to staff in his bid to obtain gowns and surgical masks.

Let’s imagine a hypothetical situation…

Imagine that there is a webcomic about an ambulance station.

Imagine that each strip is ‘humourous’ in and of itself, but that they build into an ongoing work.

Imagine that it might be written by an ambulance person who has a blog.

Now…what should that webcomic be called?

Answers/suggestions in the comments please, the winner may well win a prize.

 

I was called to a 39 year old male, possibly dead. As I entered the house I saw his relatives crying, and sitting on a kitchen chair was my patient. He looked dead, and wasn't breathing.

I felt for a pulse, didn't feel one - so I hooked up the heart monitor and there was no electrical activity at all.

I turned around to his relatives and told them that there was nothing that I could do for him, and that an ambulance crew would turn up shortly to help them out.

It took ten minutes for the crew to turn up, and I didn't recognise them at all, they must have come from outside our area.

Suddenly one of the crew said they had felt a pulse!

He was also breathing. Oxygen was given and he was rushed out to the ambulance - all that was running through my head was how I had 'starved' him of oxygen, and how much trouble I was going to be in.

One of the crew told me to fake my paperwork, and say that I'd given the patient oxygen. But I knew I was going to get into trouble.

I felt sick for the patient, and sick for myself - this is the sort of mistake that can cost you your job.

Then the postman rang my doorbell, and I woke up from the nightmare I was having.

It's funny how this job can play on your mind, the things that I've seen, and dealt with on this job and as an A&E nurse. Yet it seems that the fear of making a mistake with a patient is still the thing that scares me most.

I've dealt with murders, mutilations and miscarriages. I've seen death in the faces of 3 month old children, 14 year old girls and 22 year old men. I've dealt with limbs hanging off, distraught relatives and people vomiting blood until they die.

But the only thing that haunts my dreams is the fear of doing something wrong.

Shouldn't the patient have more of a place in my mind?

Sometimes you are really glad the patient isn't facing you.

I went to an elderly male with 'chest pain', the ambulance crew turned up at pretty much the same time, so I found myself standing behind the patient as they got a history from him.

"Where is the pain?", the ambulance attendant asked

"Here", he replied pointing to the top of his chest.

"What does the pain feel like?"

"Kind of a burning pain".

"Does the pain go anywhere else?"

"Well, it didn't go with me to my friends house..."

Cue me trying (thankfully successfully) to stop from laughing out loud. Instead I managed to restrain myself to just some silent sniggering.

For those that aren't aware, chest pain which is related to the heart often radiates to the jaw or arm.

Bless him, I love this job.

I've just spoken to the crew, and the pain was related to his heart