Christian Gerzner <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Andy B's comments about cardiac disease, etc, snipped :-)

>SPUMS stands for the South Pacific Underwater Medicine (-cal?) Society.

Yep .. its Medicine.
Christian,
The SPUMS annual scientific mtg was held this May, in Fiji around the same
time the anaesthetist's conference was on. The theme for the SPUMS meet was
Fitness to Dive! Topics covered were:
Standard practice for medical assessment in recreational diving,
Diabetes & Diving,
In water restrictions for the so-called Unfit,
Effects of pseudoephedrine & antihistamines in the hyperbaric environment ,
Prevalence of Asthma in scuba divers,
Screening for Patent Foramen Ovale,
A Pathologist's view of diving medicine,
Yo-yo diving,
Handicapped divers & children,
Health surveillance in the 21st century,
Resort course medicals,
Resumption of diving after a DCI incident,
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the prevention of Osteoradionecrosis of the
facial bones .. and so on.

While chatting with a few of the Docs after dinner & drinks I was amazed to
hear how many divers with suspect problems had come to them for a medical.
When it was discovered the patient had a problem (that they denied having)
they would then shop around for someone who would pass them fit to dive.

One of my friends (Rob) had the police knocking on his door asking why he
had passed a recently deceased diver as fit to dive. Rob, being an ordinary
GP, had referred the patient on to one of the SPUMS preferred diver docs
for a thorough dive medical. Rob suspected the patient was lying about his
asthma after failing a simple stress test. Rob is very thorough .. he will
spend up to an hour talking over diving health hazards with patients
willing to listen.
Of course the asthmatic knew he wasnt going to pass if he fessed up to
using his medication nearly daily, so he found another Doc, sucked on his
ventolin before the checkout & passed because this Doc wasnt up to speed
with diving medicals.
Rob feels very guilty he did not follow-up on this patient & he certainly
was given a heavy grilling by the police even though it was NOT him that
passed the deceased diver as fit to dive.
Viv