I find it most odd.

[NotDeadYet]

Originally Posted by Janos

PS - The various chambers do offer a proper hyperbaric medicine course. It normally takes between three and five days.

Janos

That's a bit misleading, Aberdeen University teaches hyperbaric medicine and it is substantially more than 5 days and requires a medical background to start with.

The chamber courses are slightly different by comparison...

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

There are other self taught divers out their. The big joke of course is AM taught herself to dive CCR and raved and screamed about how she was better at diving a CCR than any one else. She even raved that what training there was was actually inadequate and we deserved better.

And I'm another one and a hell of a lot of KISS divers are as well. My original CCR course in 1995 involved 15min in a pool and 2hrs of lectures. So I've got a CCR card for the Cis Lunar and that was by an instructor who people think of as the top of the tree...

I'm now teaching myself to dive a Mk15, an eCCR. Why am I not doing a course? For the same reasons Mark pointed out when he went from a YBOD to a KISS, the basic common skills are there, it's now a case of adapting to eCCR and learning the technical specifics. The other reason I'm not doing a course... how many instructors are diving a Mk15 in the UK regularly... sound of rolling tumbleweed...

Who is responsible? The guy who sold me it? Biomarine? The US Army who originally bought it? Anne-Marie? Mark?

Self-teaching isn't about putting a unit on and getting in the water and working it out. Anyone who self-teaches spend a shitload of time researching it

Cheers,

Stuart

[TerryH]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

So whilst judges rate me at performing gravimetric sampling and salts analysis and parents entrusted me with the lives of their daughtrs flying through the air, based on my self teaching, apparently others consider it unthinkable I could self teach to carry out triage on a DCI victim?

I find that most odd

What you mean that you find it odd that anybody else would question
your own assessment of your own abilty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funnily enough your role as an expert witness is based on you, well, being
an expert. That would suggest that you spend a very large ammount of time
doing that job.

While I have absolutely no doubt that you could learn what is needed for
triage, I also have no doubt that you do not have the wealth of experience
that can only be gained by working as a hyperbaric doctor.

How many DCI cases have you triaged, sucessfully diagnosed and had a
happy outcome? Unless we are talking well into 3 figures here, then you
can only ever be called an enthusiatic amatuer, no matter how confident
you think you are in your own abilty.

The baseline here is that we have a potential illness, that can hit anybody
underservedly, quite often needs extremly subtle diagnosis and the
consequence for non-treatment a massive 40% of permananent damage.

Get it right and your mate is in the chamber, get it wrong and the odds of
him having permanent damage is pretty high.

I'm sorry, but even if I thought I was god's gift to medicine and self-taught
to the ninth degree, I could never make such a call.

You asked on a previous post who I would want on the boat if it went
pair-shaped. You or someone who just called it in.

Give me the layman who doesnt think he's a doc anyday.

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by NotDeadYet

That's a bit misleading, Aberdeen University teaches hyperbaric medicine and it is substantially more than 5 days and requires a medical background to start with.

The chamber courses are slightly different by comparison...
....

Diver Medic Training, Dive Medicine Courses & Training for Divers, London Recompression & Hyperbaric facilities - The London Diving Chamber

Here's a 3 dayer that covers the essentials. DDRC do a chamber awareness thing as well. In fact the old DDRC trips and dry dive were very informative (did one when they were at Bovi)

DDRC Professional Services - PADI Recompression Chamber Awareness Course

Originally Posted by DDRC

The syllabus also covers first aid for DCI and rapid neurological assessment.

Hyperbaric medicine is mainly targeted at old people, fire victims and CO poisoning IIRC. Hyperbaric O2 is particularly useful in treating ulcers for old folk with poor circulation. (Again from memory) the DDRC bloke said only about 5% of hyperbaric medicine was related to divers (and the chamber use accordingly)

Take whatever you like from that in terms of the arguments regarding DCI. The experts in DCI are the commercial dive operators like Comex and the various Navies. They bend people left right and centre. Sadly, the experience in the commercial and military diving world doesn't extend to overweight and unfit recreational divers.

Chris

[TerryH]

Originally Posted by chrisch

Sadly, the experience in the commercial and military diving world doesn't extend to overweight and unfit recreational divers.

Err unless you have a chamber that is run by military staff who
as a commercial entity do contract work

[Paul Oliver]

I have not read all of this thread but a couple of examples from me

CPR/BLS/AV

I have done this several times for real, the best outcome was following a car crash, the victim was actually suffering from food blocking his airway too far down for me to find, by doing the AV i blew the food down and he could breath.

Not conventional but by doing something i got a great result.

If i had known he had food there i would have had a major dilemma as before he passed out he indicated he had back problems, so clearing a blocked airway of someone with a potential spinal injury would have thrown up more issues and concerns.

DCI

While on a trip abroad one of our divers had an incident, they spoke only to the senior instructor on the trip, who passed it off as nothing but best take a day off.

The next day they hired some transport and went for a drive, which ended up the local mountain

Later that day when we got back they mentioned it to me, i was immediately positive that they had standard symptoms of a bend and had them call the DDRC who concurred and they were shipped off to the local pot which was some hours away by ferry.

Lessons for me:-

1. Do the drills as taught, you never know what extra benefits you may get.
2. The most qualified person can sometimes be the worst to ask, take all advise with a pinch of salt.

[NotDeadYet]

Originally Posted by chrisch

Hyperbaric medicine is mainly targeted at old people, fire victims and CO poisoning IIRC. Hyperbaric O2 is particularly useful in treating ulcers for old folk with poor circulation. (Again from memory) the DDRC bloke said only about 5% of hyperbaric medicine was related to divers (and the chamber use accordingly)

That's not the aim of the Aberdeen Uni courses, they are postgrad modules aimed directly at doctors working with divers. My point being the chambers aren't teaching [insert our chosen term] medicine, they are teaching the basics. I'm not arguing it, I'm just pointing out that the course title is a bit misleading.

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by NotDeadYet

... My point being the chambers aren't teaching [insert our chosen term] medicine, ...

Diving. (chosen term )

Yup. There's a whole 'nother topic there. I had a chat about it with the guy who does my medicals and they do post grad something or another to get on the list. I needed a French cert to do my FFESSM ticket and so we were looking at the difference between the UK and frog ones. (UK is rather more involved and the French one is sports medicine)

Hyperbaric treatment and diving medicine are separate things AFAIK.

Chris

[purple vonny]

I could certainly do my own HSE medical and pronounce myself fit. Unfortunately I need to spend money and get the official bit of paper. Bummer.

[dublinbay]

Well, if and when anyone gets badly hammered, pass my number on to them (on my web site) . I will gladly give them support and talk them through `what happens next` as Dave Pelly did with me. Having said that, a stitch in time is far better than the needlework involved in delaying getting to a chamber ( 7 hours in my case, down to Spanish EMS/Hospital). There is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant, same as DCS. I cant say this any clearer. DONT WAIT TO CALL CG/EMS!! DO IT AND BE DAMNED!! SO, IT`S INCONVENIENT TO GET BACK TO YOUR CAR/HOUSE/COUNTRY!! IT`S ALSO INCONVENIENT TO USE A CATHETER TO HAVE A PEE, OR WORSE, LEARNING TO LIVE IN A WHEELCHAIR.

[dry suit diver]

[quote=BJ;897037]

Originally Posted by Mark Chase

Spot on.

Some of the self-taught CCR divers I know or have known:

Hans Hass, Peter Readey (he taught me but then what do I know?!!), Rob Palmer (died on open circuit), Dave Thompson, Martin Parker, Bill Stone, Stuart Clough. My card is a manufacturer's certification because there were no training courses then.

Start your own agency, write your own course. Job done!

Mike Bus is BSAC National Instructor No1. Who certified him?

maybe he collected tokens from the back of cornflakes packets.