"Well, it is a full moon"
"What?"
"Full moon................. bound to get odd jobs"
I had heard of this phenomena before starting the job and took it with a pinch of salt. But it did provide a neat explanation for the random jobs we had dealt with that night.
The first call was for a male upside down in a bush. Surprisingly he turned out to be three sheets to the wind and known to the police. I was working with Springbok*, he was on overtime from another station and was finding it hilarious when the elderly drunk began trying to convince me he was the best date I could ever hope for!
"I have money you know"
"Really? Why were you upside down in a bush then instead of safely in the back of a Bentley?"
"Aye, lots of money. Whats stopping you?"
"Aye, lots of money. Whats stopping you?"
"Your older than my Dad, you've been sick down your suit and I don't date people who aim to look like Santa"
"You don't know what your missing. How about dinner?"
All these sentences were followed by winks and, what he probably thought were, sexy looks. We were waiting for the police to re-attend as he had become insistent he didn't want to go to hospital. Even though he had been informed his only other option was the cells to sleep off the state he was in, he was happy to oblige and we contacted our friends to collect him as requested. We have no powers to detain people and force them to hospital when they state they really don't want to go.
30 minutes we waited for our police attendance. The whole time I was in the back fielding the advances of a drunk 60 year old with Springbok* finding it hilarious to gesture, rudely, at me from the front cab. My laughter at Springbok only encouraged Santa* that he was getting somewhere! A very relieved Ambulance Nut was extremely happy when the lovely police came along and escorted Santa to his bed for the night!
Now this sounds a fairly standard job with a small twist, even I get chatted up every now and again, usually drunkards and older than I'd like but it happens!
I can't remember the exact job chronology of the night but I remember looking up at the moon every now and again and questioning whether I really believed it had any meaning at all.
The last job, in the early hours of the morning, was difficult. It started off as a simple 'possible overdose' and we attended as normal, the address wasn't known to me so it was approached with the most open mind possible at 4am.
The lady inside, at first, appeared agitated but not over alarmed at anything. She was reluctant to give a proper history (what she had taken, when, how much?) and kept moving round the apartment rather than staying still and letting us assess her.
The police arrived and it became apparent they knew her. She began to act irrationally, particularly towards men. We persuaded her to come into the back of the ambulance for a check up and after some hard work and lots of talking, got her there.
Things started getting difficult from here on in. As Springbok went to obtain a blood pressure from the patient she recoiled and began screaming about nobody touching her and all men wanting to rape her. This was a complete change in behaviour and personality, she began screaming and throwing around accusations of rape at any male who came near her. Springbok removed himself from the back of the vehicle as I tried to calm her down.
Lucky a female police officer was with the attending team and together we managed to calm the patient enough to transfer her to hospital. However, en route she maintained that all men were out to rape and kill her and that with Springbok driving none of us were safe.
It was exhausting. I believe on some level her paranoia was genuine, something had possibly happened in her past to make her suspicious of men to this extent, but the level of hysteria and screaming was heightened to a level that was beyond rational.
Beyond rational: Thinking about it, this is probably a symptom in a psychology text book somewhere.
The whole job from beginning to end just appear bizarre. Along with all the other madness (usally accompanied by alcohol) we had seen that night I was thinking I had maybe seen my first example of 'The Full Moon Effect' when Springbok turned to me and calmly stated:
"Well it is a full moon tonight"
"What?"
"Full moon................... bound to get odd jobs"
Maybe I'll start to keep an eye on the cycle of the moon as well as the football scores before going on to night shift.
11 comments:
It's time this old tosh was put to bed. I work in learning disability support: many of the people I support have epilepsy. I often hear from colleagues who really should know better that people have more seizures when the moon's full. It concerns me that they may be too busy seeing illusory patterns to notice real and possibly significant changes in seizure activity.
Two words for Springbok: confirmation bias.
My computer wouldn't let me open your link but I get the feeling it wasn't on the complimentary side for Springbok
I think you misunderstand our thinking when it comes superstitions like this.
Every patient regardless of their presenting complaint, seizures included, gets a professional and thorough treatment. We gain as much history as we can and treat the patient according to that and report the relevent information to the receiving physician. If this includes a change in seizure behaviour we will treat it and report it accordingly......
I resent the implication that you believe we would do otherwise.
I was simply pointing out that we sometimes notice a collection of unusal jobs. On this occasion it was a full moon and we got to thinking about the well known 'myth' about the full moon. Springbok has been in the job longer than me and exposed to these theories longer.
Please re-read with this frame of mind and remember I do refer to this as a 'myth' within the title.
a while ago I had someone tell me he turned to Christianity because he witnessed miracle healings and then in the next breath said "you don't believe in all that bollocks do you?" when I told him not to use the Q word, especially as it was a full moon and we were only two hours into our nights weekend. I wanted to kick him out of the car whilst still moving.
Louise, that last job made me immediately think that the poor cow had been abused / whatever previously, leading to her increased mental state and "fear" and eventual attempt on her own life... quite sad and upsetting really. :-(
Did you ever hear how she got on, out of interest?
I won't comment on the "lunar effect", as I know there's as much stuff on the 'net to support it, as there is to disprove it, and until I see it for myself in someone like a long-standing friend etc., I'll always be a septic... I mean skeptic!... but if it helps, here's that page "Anonymous" linked to;
/QUOTE from https://notes.utk.edu/Bio/greenberg.nsf/0/7803a6500b6a93b185256e3d000c63a3?OpenDocument
confirmation bias
"It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives." --Francis Bacon
Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs. For example, if you believe that during a full moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergency room where you work, you will take notice of admissions during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur during other nights of the month. A tendency to do this over time unjustifiably strengthens your belief in the relationship between the full moon and accidents and other lunar effects.
This tendency to give more attention and weight to data that support our beliefs than we do to contrary data is especially pernicious when our beliefs are little more than prejudices. If our beliefs are firmly established upon solid evidence and valid confirmatory experiments, the tendency to give more attention and weight to data that fit with our beliefs should not lead us astray as a rule. Of course, if we become blinded to evidence truly refuting a favored hypothesis, we have crossed the line from reasonableness to closed-mindedness.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that people generally give an excessive amount of value to confirmatory information, that is, to positive or supportive data. The "most likely reason for the excessive influence of confirmatory information is that it is easier to deal with cognitively" (Gilovich 1993). It is much easier to see how a piece of data supports a position than it is to see how it might count against the position. Consider a typical ESP experiment or a seemingly clairvoyant dream: Successes are often unambiguous or data are easily massaged to count as successes, while negative instances require intellectual effort to even see them as negative or to consider them as significant. The tendency to give more attention and weight to the positive and the confirmatory has been shown to influence memory. When digging into our memories for data relevant to a position, we are more likely to recall data that confirms the position (ibid.).
Researchers are sometimes guilty of confirmation bias by setting up experiments or framing their data in ways that will tend to confirm their hypotheses. They compound the problem by proceeding in ways that avoid dealing with data that would contradict their hypotheses. For example, parapsychologists are notorious for using optional starting and stopping in their ESP research. Experimenters might avoid or reduce confirmation bias by collaborating in experimental design with colleagues who hold contrary hypotheses. Individuals have to constantly remind themselves of this tendency and actively seek out data contrary to their beliefs. Since this is unnatural, it appears that the ordinary person is doomed to bias.
See related entries on ad hoc hypothesis, cognitive dissonance, communal reinforcement, control study, selective thinking, and self-deception.
For examples of confirmation bias in action, see entries on "alternative" health practices, curses, ESP, intuitives, lunar effects, personology, plant perception, the Sokal hoax, therapeutic touch and thought field therapy.
further reading
o Coincidences: Remarkable or Random? by Bruce Martin
o Baloney Detection: How to draw boundaries between science and pseudoscience by Michael Shermer
o Smart People Believe Weird Things: Rarely does anyone weigh facts before deciding what to believe by Michael Shermer
To see confirmation bias at work, review the conspiracy theories offered for the JFK assassination. It is a good lesson to observe how easily intelligent people can see intricate connections and patterns that support their viewpoint and how easily they can see the faults in viewpoints contrary to their own. As long as one ignores certain facts and accepts speculation as fact, one can prove just about anything to one's own satisfaction.
reader comments
Belsky, Gary and Thomas Gilovich. Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes-And How to Correct Them: Lessons from the New Science of Behavioral Economics (Fireside, 2000).
Evans, B. Bias in Human Reasoning: Causes and Consequences (Psychology Press, 1990).
Gilovich, Thomas. How We Know What Isn't' So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life (New York: The Free Press, 1993).
Levine, Robert. The Power of Persuasion - How We're Bought and Sold by (John Wiley & Sons 2003)
Reason, James. Human Error (Cambridge University Press 1990).
Shermer, Michael. The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense (Oxford University Press 2002).
Shermer, Michael. Why People Believe Weird Things : Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time 2nd ed. (Owl Books 2002).
/ENDQUOTE
Hope that helps, if you did want to at least see what he/she was referencing. (I've not bothered to read the text myself)
Regards
I've mentioned this myth before. Apparenly the word 'lunatic' is represented from the word 'lunar'. As in, The lunar cycle. Not sure of the full history between the two but it may be worth a google. Or maybe its just alot of dribble?!!
James...........
I afraid I don't know what happened to this patient. She didn't allow anybody to effectively help her in the hospital and unfortunately became such a problem she was lifted by the poilce. There was no eveidence medical or physical that she had actually taken an overdose but she had definitely been drinking. I have no doubt her reactions stem from some abuse in preivouis years but we can only help the people who will allow us to.
Thaks for the quote it makes for interesting reading. I think we all look for some 'confirmatio bias' who doesn't want to have proof for their beliefs? I know there are certain beliefs that I hold that other people would snigger at, I have had my personal proof that this is real to me and I gain comfort from this.
My problem with ANON 22:02 is that before using the quote they appear to imply that we would be unprofessional towards a patient because of there being a full moon on a shift.
These are superstitions which we find amusing when they appear to 'proved' on shift. Its a observation that was made that night, nothing more than that.
Sorry for the crap spelling! Man alive, thats what I get for blogging the morning after an afternoon of rugby on the tv! :)
I'm sorry I got your back up. My post was not meant to read like a personal dig. I wrote about colleagues of mine, not colleagues of yours. However if some people working in my field can take this even a bit seriously, then you can bet some in your field do too - which means that patient care might suffer as a result.
I'm sure you're aware that certain ambulance staff share the regrettable attitude of the general population towards mentally ill people, and medieval nonsense about the full moon can only strengthen such prejudices. It's not funny, it's not just a bit of a laugh. I wonder whether the LAS staff who let Andrew Jordan die in their ambulance joked about the full moon. It appears that one of them moaned about having to deal with a 'nutter':
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/feb/08/socialcare.guardiansocietysupplement1
http://www.gardencourtchambers.co.uk/news/news_detail.cfm?iNewsID=231
Anon..........
I'm all too aware of ambulance staff less than sympathetic towards mental health patients, I hope that if you've been a long time reader you'll know I try, at the very least, to be as professional as possible to towards all patients, and have in the past empathised with some.
Unfortunately our emergency access to mental health services is completely inadequate for the demand. Also a large majority of our jobs are compounded by alcohol and drug abuse, it tends to be the same people, with the same problem and can be extremely difficult to deal with. It can grind you down when there is nothing you can do about it.
I'm not excusing unprofessional behaviour towards these patients but this may go some way to explaining how the rot can set in.
I haven't looked at your links yet and I'm unaware of the case of Andrew Jordan so I won't pass comment on that just yet, as soon as I've had a chance to look properly I will reply.
Thank you
Hi Louise,
We too have irrational feelings about the Lunar Cycle and have many experiences to back this up. Monday night with full cheese smiling at us from the sky, blew these out of the water! It was one of the quietest nights I can remember in 9 years. I often checked with the control room that my radio was working properly, it was and the operator confirmed his suspicions about faulty equipmnt with me too.
Re the emergency access to crisis teams I can't agree more. Sitting in a hospital for hours on end with a 136 patient is ridiculous. Drugs and alcohol have to be allowed to wear off before they are seen. This can take hours and hours and frequently does. There needs to be a change in legisation which allows hospitals to effectively lock people up until assessed and not just allow people to leave. This is said from a purely selfish point of view as 136 patients frequently stop police from being out and answering calls as we are the only ones who can lawfully detain them in a hospital.
Oh well mate, sure that nothing will change and come the next full moon when I am on nights I will still hold the belief regardless of confirmation bias.
I've said and heard the "full moon" comments (jokingly) on many occasions.
I did sit down and think of it on a quiet night shift one. Perhaps there is more activity because the full moon provides extra light during the night? Or perhaps it's because the full moon falls towards the end of the month... which is near payday?
I'm sure it's all rubbish. But it's a fun myth to propagate.
-Altercation
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