In the yacht medical training courses I teach in the classroom and onboard, there is one thing that appears in almost every session:
anecdotal evidence.
In fact, some of the most passionately defended medical advice I hear on yachts comes not from doctors, nurses or research papers, but from friends, family members, captains, other crew, and occasionally somebody’s grandmother.
The problem is that anecdotal evidence can sound extremely convincing, whilst being completely wrong and even potentially harmful.
What is anecdotal evidence?
An anecdote is simply a personal story or experience.
For example:
“We always hang choking children upside down and it works”
“My mate peed on a jellyfish sting and the pain disappeared”
These stories are memorable because they involve real people and real experiences, are often told with confidence and repeated many times therefore spreading far and wide, and sometimes entering folklore as the most recommended treatment.
The issue is that a single experience does not prove that something is safe, effective or the reason the person recovered. Just because somebody recovered one time after a particular treatment, does not automatically mean they recovered because of it. Medicine is full of conditions that improve naturally over time. If someone applies a completely ineffective treatment and then gets better anyway, that may prompt them to genuinely believe the treatment worked.
This is how medical myths survive for generations.
So why do we love anecdotes?
Humans are storytellers.
Long before scientific journals existed, knowledge was passed from person to person through stories and making observations.
If a sailor was stung by a jellyfish in 1850 and another sailor urinated on the sting and the pain improved an hour later, a story was born. That story may then be passed through generations of seafarers until it becomes accepted as fact. The problem is that nobody stops to ask: Would the pain have improved anyway? Was it actually the urine that helped? Could something else have worked better?
Asking these questions forms the basis of evidence-based medicine.
The butter on a burn myth
This is one of my favourites because almost everyone has heard it.
For decades, people applied butter, oils, creams and various household substances to burns. The theory was simple: butter felt cool and soothing, so people assumed it was helping.
In reality, butter acts as an insulator. It traps heat inside the skin and can potentially worsen tissue damage. It also introduces contamination to an already damaged wound.
Modern burn management is remarkably simple: cool the burn under cool running water for twenty minutes as soon as possible after injury. Remove jewellery and restrictive clothing, cover the burn with a clean dressing and seek medical advice when appropriate.
No butter required.
Yet even today, I still hear crew members confidently suggesting it.
Peeing on jellyfish stings
This myth has achieved almost legendary status. Part of its popularity came from a scene in Friends the TV show where Joey peed on Monica at the beach.
Even today, many crew still believe urine neutralises jellyfish venom. Unfortunately, scientific studies have shown that urine may actually trigger additional stinging in some jellyfish species by causing unfired stinging cells to release more venom.
Not ideal.
Current recommendations vary depending on the species involved, but flushing with seawater, heat, and vinegar are primary treatments.
The old “just pee on it” advice has largely been abandoned by modern marine medicine, but despite this it remains one of the most frequently repeated pieces of first aid folklore in yachting, perhaps because it makes for a better story than evidence-based treatment. But, as I always say, if you pee on someone after a sting, you are just enjoying yourself, but if you are the victim, not so much!
Hanging a choking child upside down
This is another one that regularly appears during training.
Many people remember being told that if a child is choking, you should grab them by the ankles and hang them upside down.
The problem is that it doesn’t follow what we know about airway obstruction management. Suspending a child upside down can delay effective treatment and risks injury.
Modern choking management uses carefully taught sequences of back blows and abdominal thrusts (previously the Heimlich manoeuvre) or chest thrusts, depending on age and circumstances.
These techniques have been studied, evaluated and refined over many years to ensure you don’t end up in a CPR protocol from a choking incident.
These techniques may not look as dramatic as hanging someone upside down, but they work far better.
“We’ve always done it this way”
Perhaps the most dangerous phrase in medicine. History is filled with medical practices that were widely accepted before evidence proved they were ineffective or harmful.
Bloodletting was once a standard treatment for disease, smoking was recommended by doctors, patients were routinely kept on prolonged bed rest after heart attacks. Many of these accepted practices disappeared once proper research showed they caused more harm than good. Medicine advances because it questions tradition.
So what is evidence-based practice?
Evidence-based practice combines three things:
The best available scientific evidence
Clinical expertise
The needs and circumstances of the patient
It doesn’t mean blindly following research papers, it means using the best information available rather than relying solely on stories, assumptions or “we’ve always done it this way”.
In my work training yacht crew with Medical Support Offshore (MSOS), this principle is central to everything we teach. As I am sure you are well aware, we have limited medical equipment, no doctor onboard and delayed access to hospital. This makes it even more important that the actions we take, especially in the first few minutes of a medical incident, are based on evidence rather than myth, because the wrong intervention can waste precious time. In some situations, it can make the victim worse.
The challenge for yacht crew
Yacht crew are particularly vulnerable to anecdotal medicine.
People join the industry from different countries, backgrounds and training systems. They bring with them advice learned from parents, previous captains, social media, YouTube videos and old first aid courses. Some of that advice is excellent, but some of it is decades out of date.
One of the most rewarding moments during my training is seeing a crew member suddenly realise that something they have believed for years simply isn’t supported by evidence, and then teaching them what actually works, ensuring they feel confident in rescuing someone sick or injured in the best way possible with easy-to-follow protocols.
So the next time someone says:
“Trust me, this really worked for my mate.”
Pause for a moment.
Ask where the information came from, ask whether it has been tested, ask whether there is evidence behind it.
Anecdotes can be useful starting points, they can generate ideas, observations and questions, but they should never be the final answer, because when it comes to medical emergencies at sea: good stories are interesting, good evidence saves lives.
If you would like to ensure your crew are up to date with the latest evidence-based protocols, which is particularly relevant after the 2025 European and UK Resuscitation Council Guidelines update, get in touch for a pre-season training day with an MSOS trainer anywhere worldwide.
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