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The World’s Funniest Medical Jobs EVER!
So we thought as it’s just before Christmas and no one is thinking about work, we’d take a look at some of the funniest jobs that the Red Square Medical team have been to over the years!
There were some very strong contenders for the final list, but we did realise that alcohol featured heavily in many of them! These are the ones that got voted in as the funniest… so enjoy!
List of services
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The Lady with the DogList Item 1
A damp evening and the crew found a lady standing in her garden in the rain, concerned about the ‘lady with a dog’ who had fallen over. There was no lady or dog, but my colleague, who used to be a veterinary nurse, was dispatched to check the ‘dog’ was OK, while I got the lady inside. There the story got more bizarre.
Apparently alien children had been living with her for the last 2 weeks and their parents were now here, in the spaceship overhead, to take them home. She told us they were quite quiet and had been no trouble at all. Thinking quickly, I suggested that could be because English wasn’t their first language if they were from a different planet! The patient thought that was quite likely.
The patient agreed to come to the hospital but was worried about us and the nurses being affected by radiation from the space ship. We used NLP techniques to work with the patient's world, to gain her trust and be able to help her. We reassured her that we and the nurses work around x-rays so wouldn’t be affected by the radiation. We suspected a UTI… unless there actually were aliens!!!!!.
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The Crusted ScabiesList Item 2
The young man with ‘crusted scabies’ (look that one up!) and a groin injury. He was running round his flat with blood pouring from his groin, scratching at the scabies. There were flakes of skin flying everywhere and the temptation for us to stop breathing was strong!
It was one where we wished we’d worn full Tyvex suits and respirator hoods. Let’s just say that we didn’t sit down, did our assessment super fast, wrapped him in a blanket and got going to the hospital asap!
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The Pain relief oneList Item 3
Warning… morphine can act like a truth serum! A lovely patient with sciatic pain was stuck belly down over a footstool in a lot of pain. In order to move him to get to hospital, we used Entonox (gas and air), IV paracetamol and morphine. But we had no idea of what was coming.
As the drugs started to kick in, the patient started to get more chatty… and giggly! He started to tell us how much he loved his wife, plus a few facts about their relationship that we really didn’t need to know. Argh! What has been heard, cannot be unheard! Soon the pain had eased enough to get him to hospital but we were blushing for the rest of the day!
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The Anaesthetic oneList Item 4
In a similar vein (get it!!), as a student medic, you are required to rotate through the various hospital departments to get a rounded education. I was doing a stint in recovery which is where the patients are taken after having surgery to make sure that the anaesthetic wears off and the airway is maintained at all times until they are ready to be transported back to the ward. I had been tasked to sit with a patient and to remove his airway tube as he regained consciousness. This duly happened and he turned to look at me and promptly said “F**k me, you’re ugly! I want that one over there!” pointing at one of my colleagues. I properly laughed and knew that he would have no recollection of that moment. There are so many stories like that one from my time working in recovery.
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Monkey Dust
One New Years Day, we were called to a patient who had taken Monkey Dust but was also diabetic. He was displaying erratic mood swings and uncoordinated movements. His blood sugars were too high, but he was convinced they were too low and knew that for low blood sugar, he needed to eat something sugary. So he poured a bowl of cereal, sprinkled sugar liberally and started trying to eat it. Except he couldn’t get the spoon to his mouth and kept throwing the cereal all over himself and the floor, becoming more and more frustrated! It was like a scene from Airplane and we just had to stand back and watch the puddles of milk and cereal expand across the floor. Some very tired police officers at the end of their long NYE shift arrived and we all had a laugh about how this was the first job of the New Year and what else could possibly go wrong. It was 2020!
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Deep Heat vs KY Jelly
During my first sea draft I was working late in the Sick Bay, updating patient notes from the days cases, when the phone rang. When I answered it there was a small voice at the end that sounded like the owner was in pain. He asked if he could come by sick bay and apologised for it being out of hours. I said sure, come on down. He arrived and was very red in the face and walking with extreme care. I asked him what the problem was and he showed me a tube of deep heat. My immediate thought was that he had been rubbing some deep heat into a sore muscle and must have had an open wound that it got into and stung like mad. But oh no, he had not been rubbing it into a sore muscle. I shan’t spell it out for you but let's just say that he thought he was reaching for KY Jelly….
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The Catheter story
It was the last job before my annual leave. The gentleman met us at the door with the words ‘I’m sorry to call you out but I’ve been really stupid’. Having been prepped for surgery, the procedure was cancelled so he stormed out of the hospital in a huff. He managed to remove his cannula without bleeding to death… result! But he couldn’t figure out how to get his catheter out, so he just cut the end off! The result was a 10cm tube of plastic sticking out of his unmentionables and a constant stream of urine! We couldn’t help but laugh. After padding out his undies with incontinence pads, a trip to hospital followed so that the remaining catheter could be removed safely.
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How much baggage?
At the start of lockdown, we were called to an elderly homeless lady who was outside in the middle of the night. We got her and her multiple carrier bags and suitcases (there were about 15!) onto the ambulance and assessed her. She was actually fine, but told us she was supposed to have a room at a hostel. A call to social services confirmed things were in place for her and she had the means to get to where she needed to be.
The problem was that when the time came for her to get off the ambulance she totally refused. We literally couldn’t get her off, even with our best persuasive moves and when we put all of her bags back outside. She kept talking, refused to stand up, showed us the money stuffed down her bra, and came up with all sorts of reasons not to get off. After an hour of trying to get her to leave, we had to threaten her with calling the Police before she very reluctantly got off and we left scene quickly to go to the next job before she could get on the vehicle again!
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The oily ice rink
A lovely, happy patient with learning difficulties decided to fry some sausages with a reasonable (as in large!) amount of oil in the frying pan. Of course she spilled the oil on the floor. She tried to mop it up with water! Then of course slipped over in it. She wasn’t hurt, but couldn’t get up.
When we arrived, she was sitting at the far side of the kitchen and giggling away. I put one foot on the lino… and slipped! I managed to stay upright but soon realised that getting to the patient was going to be like a scene from Looney Tunes on ice!
We got a couple of towels from the bathroom and managed to get to the patient who was fine, but finding it all very amusing. With a little help, she was able to get up and use the towel pathway to safety!
Going above and beyond, we tried to think of something that would get rid of the oil slick so she didn’t fall again… the answer… good old Fairy Liquid. We sloshed a load of it around and mopped up the oil so the patient was safe to leave at home.
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The complex scissor case
On another ship that I was working on I got called out to one of the onboard office spaces. I have to admit, I was a little put out as the caller said it wasn’t an emergency and that mostly the patient was fine so I was wondering why he couldn’t make it to the medical centre. Anyway, I grabbed my kit bag and made my way up to the office space and on entering the space found a chap with his hand pinned to the desk with a pair of scissors. They had been playing silly games and when the ship rolled a little heavier than usual the scissors slipped and went through his hand instead of between his fingers. I laughed and had to call him out for being so daft as to play that game in the first place. It ended up a more complex case than I first thought as well because it was hard work unpinning him from the desk!
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The drunk medics
I was duty weekend in Portsmouth Naval Dockyard and heard the bell go at the front door. In enters a gaggle of medics holding someone up (another medic). They were all drunk and had been throwing their best shapes around the dance floor of a popular dancing hall. So there I am, a fairly junior medic, surrounded by a load of senior medics including the patient trying to get a set of vital signs and they all had the proper giggles, it was soooooo infectious that I couldn’t help myself and started gigging. I literally had no idea what I was laughing at but it was bloody funny!
We hope you liked our choice of funny jobs, and of course, we’d love to hear your stories too so please comment on our social media posts!
Please do share our blogs with people you think may enjoy or benefit from them...
Welcome to our December blog, which is all about the recovery position and how to manage an unconscious casualty who is breathing normally. Unconsciousness is a medical emergency as the person is very vulnerable and may not be able to manage their own airway effectively. We also need to think about the cause of unconsciousness. Is it a simple fainting episode due to illness? Is it a massive hemorrhage causing hypovolemic shock? Or is it due to some kind of external factor or injury? This blog looks at how to manage an unconscious casualty. So, if we have a casualty who is unconscious, but who is breathing normally for themselves, and we’re not suspecting a serious injury, the recovery position is the best position to use while monitoring them. The recovery position keeps their airway open and makes sure that vomit or liquid won’t cause them to choke.
All the guest blogs! When we started adding blogs to our website back in early 2021, we did a little feature on each of our instructors of the time. They’re quite a fascinating bunch and the series proved quite popular amongst our followers. In addition to our amazing instructors, we work with some utterly incredible human beings all over the world, and the idea of sharing their stories grew and developed into what eventually became a monthly guest blog. It’s been interesting to find out more about how medical care at sea or in remote locations features in their work, and to discover a few fun facts along the way. This month, we thought that it might be a fun idea to give you a chance to go back into the archives and review all the guest blogs over the last few years! Maybe even let us know which your favourite one is?
We’ve taken a look at the 2023 Casualty Summary Report from the Maritime Authority of the Cayman Islands (MACI) to see what kind of incidents and trends their data shows us, even with relatively small data sets, and how this may be able to transfer to our own risk assessments and actual practice. You can find the report here: Cayman Maritime Report 2023 The first thing we noted was the authors note that the data is split out into incidents. This means that one incident may include a number of events. So a collision and any resulting injury is one incident, but is reported as two events, or more, if more than one person is injured. It made us wonder whether this method of reporting by an authority represents how incidents are reported onboard and whether it should be a consideration? Of course, for any set of statistics presented at the moment, we also have to consider the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact this has on trends including that period. While essential shipping continued, the cruise and superyacht sectors reduced activity and staffing, often to a skeleton crew while anchored somewhere. So this will be reflected in the historic data sets that we analyse from 2019 to 2021 and may not accurately reflect increases and decreases during and since then. In some situations, we may need to look further back for accurate data. We also need to consider whether increases in incidents and events is also down to increased reporting - suggesting an improvement in the awareness of reporting requirements and greater engagement from the industry and individual sectors - this can only be a good development. Since 2020, the type of injury has been recorded in 8 different categories, with hand and foot injuries topping the leaderboard, closely followed by head, body, and back injuries. So if you were looking to run drills, or practise medical skills, these would be the key areas to cover. Only one death was an occupational accident, and is being investigated here: MAIB Investigations (search for case #9229607). It relates to a fall down a ventilation shaft on a bulk carrier in a Greek shipyard. The full report was still pending at the time of writing. Merchant ships are heavily regulated by a number of authorities, and the requirements for personal protective equipment and safe systems of work are enforced and applied to reduce accidents and incidents onboard. This has led to a lower reporting of incidents than in the commercial yacht sector. Could there be room for improvement here in this area? We certainly think so. Many of the hand and foot injuries reported can be career ending or life changing, but are preventable. Follow up has shown that there is a link here with injuries being sustained when inappropriate or no PPE was used. The supply and use of appropriate PPE is mandatory on vessels subject to the MLC and it’s worth remembering that some PPE can be produced in styles and designs compatible with the aesthetics of a yacht if required! On a much wider scale, a lack of transparency and standardisation globally can affect the collection of data and the issue of under reporting. While the MACI figures may be accurate, we need other accurate figures to compare them to, in order to build a bigger picture across the world as we have in aviation. From December 2024, the Maritime Labour Convention (MLC) will be enforcing an amendment so that seafarer deaths will be recorded and reported annually. The MACI and Cayman Islands Shipping Registry produces a number of safety flyers that are publicly available HERE that may be useful. In summary, analysing data can sometimes result in more questions than answers. But even this can lead to interesting and important developments that result in improved safety and reduced incidents and accidents onboard. Key points to take from this report are: Use the correct PPE for the task. Employ approved systems of work and risk assessments for the task. Reporting is key for safety in the future of our industry. Enjoy a night ashore, but don’t over do the cocktails! As always, if you’d like any input on medical training onboard or ashore, or drills that you can run yourselves, please just get in touch. References: https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1145359/Increase-in-incidents-of-deaths-at-sea
Welcome to our latest guest blog where we’ve been chatting to James Griffiths, General Manager of Ocean Operations for Scenic Group and finding out more about what happens behind the scenes in order to keep a fleet of luxury expedition ships running. Here’s what James told us… As General Manager of Ocean Operations, I’m responsible for the operations of our fleet which includes four ships in service with around 850 colleagues. I currently live in Mumbles, near Swansea in the UK, but due to the nature of my work I spend a significant amount of time living in Croatia. Prior to this role, I spent many years working at sea and worked up through the ranks to Captain and over the last 15 years, my main focus has been on polar expedition travel. I hold a master mariner certificate of competency in addition to a degree in engineering and a post graduate diploma in law. Part of my job is to work with our medical service provider (Red Square Medical) to ensure that our ships are offering medical services that are appropriate for their deployment, and this can often be to some of the most extreme and remote locations around the world. It’s extremely varied, though during the COVID-19 pandemic, I came ashore when our operations paused for a significant period of time. I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to lead the restart of our Ocean Operations, which included setting up everything from a company to manage the ships, to selecting our crewing, medical, helicopter and submarine partners and providers, amongst many other things. Our areas of operation, and the nature of our cruises (expedition), plus having aircraft and submersibles onboard some, do mean additional elements involved in the management of these ships. You could say that this current position is more of a happy coincidence than one that I actually planned for! In some ways this is a great positive - I do think it’s possible to plan a little too much and then be disappointed if things don’t go quite the way you had imagined. But there’s no danger of that here!
Back in February 2022, we brought you one of our very first guest blogs from Simon Lawton, a Paramedic who has swapped out his ambulance for a Superyacht! You can read the original blog here: https://www.redsquaremedical.com/superyacht-paramedic-a-guest-blog-from-simon-lawton Over the last 2+ years, we’ve followed Simon’s career, and some of you may even recognise him as he does put a Red Square Medical instructor hat on from time to time. But, as for all healthcare professionals, Simon has to keep his skills up to date. So, we asked him to tell us a bit more about how he juggles this along with a rota onboard. Here’s what he told us… I’m originally from Stoke-on-Trent in the UK and trained as a HCPC registered Paramedic. I’ve spent almost 5 years working at sea now, with almost continuous employment on three different vessels, after leaving the ambulance service in 2019. My first role was as a Paramedic/Deck hand on Superyachts, and I now work as a Medical Officer on a maritime vessel. Even before I applied to become a Paramedic, I intended to complete my studies to help find employment in a remote or offshore environment. I had always been attracted to the idea of being able to travel the world while earning a salary. Working at sea has meant that I have travelled extensively, earnt a higher salary, and have a better work/rest balance than would be possible in a role on land. Note: At the time of writing, a qualified Paramedic’s starting pay in the UK was £28,407 and Simon’s old rota was 2 days, 2 nights (all 12 hours) and 4 days off with very inflexible annual leave. This year I decided to carry out some continual professional development (CPD) at a hospital in Mexico, to keep my skills up to date. I was interested in travelling to find out more about how healthcare services are provided outside the UK and Europe. The CPD activity in Mexico allowed me to do exactly that, while caring for and treating a wide variety of patients who had either self-presented in the emergency department, or been conveyed to hospital by ambulance.
Welcome to our September blog, and as we all start (in the UK at least!) to think about adding a few layers for warmth, we’d like to talk about getting naked! Well, to be more specific, getting bra’s off. Fact: Women are dying because bystanders are less likely to carry out CPR on women than men. Research shows that women are 27% less likely to receive CPR than men and if a defibrillator is used, their chance of survival is affected by bra’s being left on. Most of us have never had the chance to train using a female manikin. The #BraOffDefibOn campaign aims to address the inequality in CPR for women and we’re supporting it.
In August, we brought you a Guest Blog from Mark Hannaford, the founder of World Extreme Medicine. This month, it’s the turn of another of the key WEM faculty members… introducing Dr Will Duffin. Hello everyone, I’m Dr Will Duffin and I’m a GP in Devon in the UK. I’m the Joint Medical Director of World Extreme Medicine (WEM) and the Lead Medic for the US CBS TV show ‘Survivor’ - for Seasons 43, 44, 46 and 48, which is also through WEM. Extreme Medicine is healthcare that is delivered across the full spectrum of remote, austere and challenging environments. This includes high mountains, deep oceans, jungles, deserts, polar, low earth orbit and refugee camps… the list is endless. Being a part of the wider Extreme Medicine community through WEM has been a portal into new worlds of possibility and opportunity in my medical career as an NHS GP. It’s a huge privilege to treat patients in a remote setting. You get to do proper ‘hands on’ medicine that truly tests your clinical skills, risk management and decision making. Even basic techniques and principles done well can transform patient outcomes. That’s the big reward. I graduated from Bristol Medical School in 2008 and completed my GP Training in Cornwall, UK in 2016. In between, I spent 18 months in Australia to gain as much emergency department experience as I could, whilst doing Wilderness Medicine Courses. I landed my first expedition gig 12 years ago when I was post-FY2 (Foundation Years follow on after qualifying as a doctor). I covered a Kilimanjaro Trek after another doctor dropped out at the last minute. Once I had this under my belt, I was able to leverage this experience to get the next trip. So, I soon found myself providing regular medical cover for various commercial and charity sector expeditions. These expeditions have taken me all over the world: Kilimanjaro, the Peruvian Andes, the Himalayas, Northern China, Eastern Europe, Myanmar and Madagascar. One highlight was working as the private doctor for a Luxury Trans-Siberian Train! Though I became frustrated having to constantly wrangle annual leave to go away, so I made the switch to being a freelance (locum) GP, which has given me the flexibility I need. I joined WEM in 2018 after responding to a Facebook Ad for the ‘Survivor’ job. I was invited to a selection weekend in the Peak District, which is when I first met Mark Hannaford WEM founder and CEO and Dr Joe Rowles, WEM’s other Medical Director, and it all went on from there. Early on, I was given the opportunity to lead on the content for the annual World Extreme Medicine Conference and our various podcasts and webinars. Through doing this, I have met a colourful cast of characters; other extreme medics who are as audacious as they are inspirational! We have a lot of fun at the conference every year, learning from one another. https://worldextrememedicine.com/registration/wem-conference-2024 (Note from the RSM team – the conference is highly recommended and well worth a visit!)
Last year, the Red Square Medical team descended on the World Extreme Medicine (WEM) conference for the very first time. We’d been aware of this unique organisation for many years, but just not had the chance to get involved. Liz was involved in a panel discussion and spoke at the conference, and we came away literally buzzing with enthusiasm - our first impressions were that WEM is a place with no ego’s, where everyone wants to learn, and is willing to share. We met some of the most fascinating people ever and can’t wait to go back this year. But what about the person who started it all… We spoke to Mark Hannaford, founder of World Extreme Medicine and its far reaching impact. Here’s what he had to say. I’ve been involved in expeditions, working in low resource environments and extreme medicine for the past three decades! My family was made up of generations of seafarers from Cornwall although I was brought up variously in Devon, Antigua in the Caribbean and the Middle East; reflecting my father’s job as a Master Mariner. My father was at one time the youngest captain aboard the UK’s largest registered vessel, and my grandfather was Harbour Master for Malta and the first in that role in Plymouth at the start of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. I wear a number of hats but primarily I am the founder and CEO of World Extreme Medicine, and the annual WEM Conference. I also founded the MSc in Extreme Medicine at the University of Exeter and Graduate Certificate program at Bouvré College of Health Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston.
Women’s health is a huge topic, while it’s true that in the maritime sector women make up just 2% of seafarers at sea, up to 34% of the shore based staff are female. Looking at the bigger picture, women’s health directly affects just under half of our population globally, and indirectly (whether you like it or not!) the other half, we thought it was worth a blog about some of the issues, and the taboo’s, that could be affecting our maritime workforce and the women in our lives. It's common knowledge that women experience huge hormonal changes at puberty and menopause, both of which can have significant physical and mental health impacts. In the UK, there is a growing discussion and openness about peri-menopause (the years before periods stop altogether) and how for some women, this has devastating effects across all aspects of their lives, including work. Of course men experience changes at puberty, but their later life changes are less significant and generally don’t affect their ability to work. In December 2023 the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a statement to advise that every year, at least 40 million women are likely to experience a long term health problem caused by childbirth. So there’s a good chance that we all know one or more women affected, or if you are female… this could be you. As part of a special series on maternal health, the study showed a high burden of postnatal conditions that persist in the months and years after giving birth. These issues include more than a third of women experiencing pain during intercourse, urinary incontinence (8-31%), anal incontinence (19%), anxiety (9-24%), depression (11-17%), perineal pain (11%), a fear of childbirth (6-15%) and secondary infertility (11%). All in all it doesn’t paint a great picture of life after childbirth for some women. If any of your workers experience these issues, either on or off shore, it could have a significant impact on areas of their working life and it’s something they may be reluctant to open up about. Even before childbirth, we may take it for granted that contraception is available, certainly in the developed world. But in developing countries where sexual violence is not uncommon, contraception is considered lifesaving due to the high level of unsafe abortions carried out. Around 13 million women (and girls) under 20 give birth annually and complications in the pregnancy and birth is a leading cause of death. Consequently abortion is an option, but this carries its own huge risks.
We just love speaking to and finding out more about the people who inspire us and we guarantee that this month’s blog will not disappoint! We first got in touch with Wendy Sullivan via LinkedIn and thought she seemed like a pretty awesome human. Wendy and her company, Maritime Medical Solutions in Australia, certainly share the same outlook as Red Square Medical. Fast forward a couple of years and we’re now collaborating on a project in Australia and the Pacific Islands. What we’ve learnt along the way is simply fascinating and Wendy has kindly agreed to share her story with us… Here is Wendy’s Guest Blog: I was born in Canada, grew up in Africa and now call Australia my home. I feel lucky to live in paradise where the weather allows us to be on the water year-round. I had to work hard to gain my Australian citizenship and I credit my work in the marine industry with giving me a pathway to stay in Australia permanently. It took years of hard work and uncertainty to gain my residency and is still one of the achievements I am most proud of. I started sailing in Canada and since emigrating to Australia gained my professional and commercial qualifications as a vessel master, marine engine driver, trainer and assessor. I also have a Diploma of Paramedical Science, ship masters medical qualifications, business administration and development and there is still so much more to come.